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Official Rugby Thread

BoyBrumby

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Three changes to both starting XVs. From Auntie.

British & Irish Lions: Hogg; A Watson, Harris, Henshaw, Van der Merwe; Biggar, Murray; Vunipola, Cowan-Dickie, Furlong, Itoje, AW Jones, Lawes, Curry, Conan.

Replacements: Owens, Sutherland, Sinckler, Beirne, Faletau, Price, Farrell, Daly.

South Africa: Le Roux; Kolbe, Am, De Allende, Mapimpi; Pollard, De Klerk; Kitshoff, Mbonambi, Malherbe, Etzebeth, Mostert, Kolisi, Du Toit, Wiese

Replacements: Marx, Nyakane, Koch, De Jager, Van Staden, Smith, H Jantjies, Willemse.

----

No argument about Mako starting or Daly missing out (he's probably slightly fortunate to keep a spot in the XXIII), but I'd probably have gone for Aki's physical presence rather than the subtler skills of Harris at #13.

Price mildly unlucky to be dropped to the pine (he was living off scraps for most of the first half until the pack got a foothold) and Conan maybe a wee bit fortunate to keep his place at 8. Big Courts having a worldie possibly obscured his lack of carry.

The Boks' changes seem to be mostly the best props starting (it's a radical concept, I know) and Wiese coming in for the unfortunate Kwagga Smith. Vermeulen has big boots (in every sense) to fill.
 
Howe_zat

Howe_zat

Audio File
I think the assumption is that Murray is more likely to be able to bail us out of trouble if we get out muscled, and since it's 1-0 we have less reason to take risks.

Fair argument that it's the wrong way around though. I think I'd rather have Murray's experience in the last few minutes to close the game out, as he did quite well last week.
 
wpdavid

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Heboric said:
I think Rassie will get into trouble for this:


Even though he says he is doing it as an individual
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I'd be astonished if doing this 'as an individual' carries any weight at all. Carte blanche for any player, coach, or whoever to say anything whatsoever. And it's all very unimpressive. Not content with continuing his massive whine, he's now trying to play the victim card in advance if he cops a suspension for this little effort. And that's before you consider the dog whistle attempt to play the race card regarding how the two captains were treated by the referee.
 
Heboric

Heboric

International Debutant
wpdavid said:
I'd be astonished if doing this 'as an individual' carries any weight at all. Carte blanche for any player, coach, or whoever to say anything whatsoever. And it's all very unimpressive. Not content with continuing his massive whine, he's now trying to play the victim card in advance if he cops a suspension for this little effort.
Click to expand...
Apart from actually doing it, where was Rassie incorrect ?
 
BoyBrumby

BoyBrumby

Englishman
I really CBA to watch the whole thing, but it seems like an exercise in whinging and jesuitical nitpicking.

If a ref was so minded I'm pretty sure he could find a penalty offence at nearly every ruck, we'd have 30 penalties a game and 5 minutes of actual rugby.

The only decision I thought was egregiously wrong in the Lions' favour was Watson, H not being carded for his dump tackle.

It's a bad look apart from anything else. I'm sure there are official routes to go down to register dissatisfaction with the officials. Doing it in public makes one look a poor sport.
 
Howe_zat

Howe_zat

Audio File
It's just the usual cherry picking of decisions and spurious claims that 50/50 calls are wrong with little justification that you get from one eyed fans on Facebook. Delivered more articulately, but the basic spirit of confirmation bias and moan is very much there.

You could do the same thing for either team in most matches with good TV coverage. Just needs enough assumptions of being the wronged party.

I find whinging about ref decisions to be the absolute worst thing about rugby discourse, and the coaches encouraging fans to pile on the referees needs to be clamped down on. It just makes everything about following the sport unpleasant.
 
Heboric

Heboric

International Debutant
Howe_zat said:
It's just the usual cherry picking of decisions and spurious claims that 50/50 calls are wrong with little justification that you get from one eyed fans on Facebook. Delivered more articulately, but the basic spirit of confirmation bias and moan is very much there.

You could do the same thing for either team in most matches with good TV coverage. Just needs enough assumptions of being the wronged party.

I find whinging about ref decisions to be the absolute worst thing about rugby discourse, and the coaches encouraging fans to pile on the referees needs to be clamped down on. It just makes everything about following the sport unpleasant.
Click to expand...
Some werent 50/50, i honestly would like someone to go through the match for the other side. There is a tendency for the politically correct response to say it happened for both sides.
 
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