Affentitten

Take your pick! I tend to use Gaddafi except when I have been writing for a publication that specifies otherwise in their house style. The next most common one I have used replaces the G with a Q.

Interesting story (written prior to last night) about some of the refereeing inconsistency in the game Rugby World Cup a lottery amid refereeing chaos. Clairvoyant given some of the decisions last night.

Love to know what the odds were on Woodcock being the first try scorer. And if anyone had taken the bet!

Also some irony that the cheap shot from McCaw on Parra ended up with Trinh-Duc coming on and he played a blinder. Also that Weepu, the hero of the last couple of games was hopless tonight. STrange how players at that level can be hot and cold. I thought it was a great game and very exciting. I really think France deserved the win based on tonight's game. They were the positive to NZ's negative. The AB's probably deserved it based on the last few years. It's probably France who can now inherit the bridesmaid title though. At least the AB's can rest assured that they will always be able to win a RWC at home.

Jesus. France so close. Really don't know if the ABs deserved that. Especially based on 2nd half. But hell. What a final.

(Quick NZ question....) A lot of the Sauv Blanc bottles sold over here is advertised as "Malborough" and also bears the label "Montana", even though the brands appear different. I'm guessing the former is the region? The latter is the company? Fill me in?

Or it just turns into a penalty kicking fest. (q.v.)

Well here we are counting down the final hours. Will NZ finally get the monkey off their backs? Or will the French break their hearts again? I have to support the French in this. (Or I might end up divorced!)

Because I happen to be a Libya 'expert'.

Tell me about it. My phone started ringing at 5.30 am this morning. I've since done 3 TV interviews, three or four radio and a couple of print stories.

I agree. If I recall correctly, when I started playing penalty kicks into touch actually gave the lineout feed back to the other team. They changed that to make a penalty more punishing (giving territory and possession). Though at the time there was no lifting in the line either, so retaining lineout ball was not as regular as it is now. I found the analysis of the scoring in the AUS-IRE game interesting. I think that's really problematic when such a proportion of the points come that way. Though in that game the scrums were particularly bad.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/veteran-lions-lobby-irb-for-scrum-overhaul-20111019-1m6yz.htmlHere's a piece about attempts to change scrummaging laws. The idea of non-convertible penalties for some of these very technical infringements would be worth exploring. "Their analysis of the World Cup pool game between Ireland and Australia, refereed by Bryce Lawrence, indicated 22 scrums, 11 collapses and seven penalties. Just under half - 43 per cent - of the game's points came from scrummage offences and it would have been over half if the kickers had been successful with all their attempts."

The try went up to 5 points after the 1991 RWC. Australia did manage just the one try in the final and it was an apt demonsration of the situation back then because they were playing against the proponents par excellence of the slow down: England. If you look at the games you can see that England scored no tries against NZ in their poll match, no tries against Scotland in the semi final and no tries in the final. Apart from mismatches agaist Italy and the USA, England's only tries against a reasonable opposition were 2 against France in the quarter final. I singled out Wilkinson because I think he represents a turn in the pro era of the game where high skilled kickers became the machinery for posting big scores. More chance for infrigement + more accurate kicking changed the balance of things a bit more. 20 years ago it would be pretty rare to see a team taking a penalty kick from the halfway line and pretty rare to see it go over. Today it's less remarkable. I don't have a solution. I understand that we don't want killing of the ruck ball. But we need to balance that a bit more against the fact that so many games are turning into teams huddling under the posts waiting for a kick.

I guess the analogy is that if so many (the majority?) of soccer goals were only being scored from penalty spot kicks people would feel similarly unhappy. This is just something I regret in our Aussie market because I love the game and it gets dissed here because 'potential' fans look at the game and just see an unending stream of technical penalities, many of which are open to interpretation. I think at this point in the game of rugby the balance is out of whack between 3 and 5 pointers. Perhaps that's a legacy of the uber-kicker trend that England started with Wilkinson. The last time this sort of imbalance crept in was around 1990/91 when we saw a load of games that were being decided 9-6 or 3-0 and then just completely shut down. They upped a try to 5 points then. I'm not sure that's necessarily the answer again but the dearth of tries is something that needs to be looked at. This isn't a refelction on last night. The Wallabies were outplayed on every level and didn't deserve to progress.

I lament that it couldn't have been closer. The other ide of the coin is that I know it was a deserved win. We weren't 'done' by anything other than our own mistakes and stupid tactics. The same stupid tactics that nearly cost us last week. WTF is this rugby league bomb thing? Whenever we got the ball and drove forward we looked threatening. The rest of the time we just aimlessly kicked. The match kick off out on the full was an apt forecast of things to come. As an Australian though I also lament another body blow to the sport here. Not because we didn't win, but because of the volume of points coming through penalties. (Especially if you add on the AB's missed ones!). NRL and AFL already market their games along the lines of "At least you'll see some actual scoring" and tonight's game (and last night's) will just play into their hands.

No argument about the result. We didn't deserve it after complete absence in the first half.

Half time. Cooper continues last week's idiocy. I just do not understand what the point of the vertical bomb is. If you have the ball, keep it. Don't do the 50/50 kick straight up in the air. And I have to say, that although my gut clenches every time Nonu gets the ball, I do love watching him play.

They got shoved around because they lost their linchpin prop at about the same point in the match.

Ah sorry. The posting was done on the fly. It was pretty much a discussion of an article I had written on The Conversation. Nobody here would have learnt much they didn't already know!

Actually I enjoyed the collaboration for once. There's been a storm of stuff this morning (including JonS's link) saying "should have been a yellow card if at all", but none of it is grounded in any fact. I was wondering if the same tackle had been performed by an 'evil' team whether people would have worked so hard to defend it. I can accept it amongst sports fans, but listening to some of the 'expert' commentary last night I can't believe that people get paid to twaddle on with such ill-informed stuff as well. Apparently the loss of a flanker was going to "Massively unbalance the Welsh scrum..". Really? A flanker isn't there to push! And for most of their defending scrums they drafted in a centre anyway. But as someone who was supporting France last night it was still pretty frustrating to watch a team with a one man advantage not manage to do anything with it for 62 minutes. If you're one up in the forwards, especially a flanker up, then just drive it up the middle and win phase. Eventually a gap will open. What's the point in an hour's worth of kicking duel?

You saw it here first. SO and I agree on a rugby matter!

Your assertion is not quite the letter of the law: Law 10.5.j Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player’s feet are still off the ground such that the player’s head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play.

I will be on ABC Radio Melbourne (774) after the 10.00 am news today (Sunday Melbourne time) talking about 'technicals' ie. trucks + guns. I'm not sure if the link will work for people outside Australia but it might http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/programs/listenlive.htm That would make the broadcast time about 2 hours and 15 minutes after the date stamp on this post.

Look I think it was harsh to get a red too. But dropping the guy at the last moment is not a defence. He knew what he was doing before then. We've all done it.

Apparently the refs were under instructions to go hard on any sort of lifting tackles. He knew what he was doing. You lift, you roll the shoulder over and you drive the guy back down...you can't say you were in the right.