The following comments via Sport 24:-
"What an unbelievable weekend to end off the 6 Nations… Still the best competition in world rugby!
First up was Wales demolition of the brave Italians. So keen to do well and keep improving, they managed to hold out until just after halftime. Then the floodgates well and truly opened and Wales proved how well they can play. Their RWC group with England and Australia is going to be interesting. I always felt their points difference was going to be a mountain too high to scale but they really made a good fist of it, and came very close. Their leadership is improving and their team doesn’t lack cohesion.
I thought the Scots would bring more to the table in their clash against Ireland. They didn’t. They were behind early and were never in the contest. By all accounts Ireland were determined, focussed and romped to one of their easiest wins in Edinburgh in years. In the end their manner of victory was enough, but only just to get them over the line, and Ireland are the proud and deserving winners of the RBS 6 Nations. Something needs to be done about Scottish rugby, as they are falling further and further behind, and if they are not careful, they will fall behind the likes of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga as losing has become a habit. They have enough players playing in the leagues of Europe and I believe have made a concerted effort in the past two years to get the balance right… With little reward. Ireland are the real deal, and despite my prediction that they would lose to Wales, they are still the best outfit from the North!
England knew what they needed to do to win. They fell behind early but had enough in their armoury to play ball! They were mightily impressive against a willing France, who really are not that bad at all. Seven tries against top opposition is no mean feat and I thought England were hugely impressive playing a brand of rugby that we don’t see that often. They will be disappointed to come 2nd again, but the reality is that they won four test matches! Their team is settled and will be playing at home in the RWC, so I expect them to progress through to the playoffs. France, well what can you say… Not bad on the day, but perhaps too many foreigners in their domestic league occupying key positions which although great for the domestic market, doesn’t allow much to come through at the pace that it should. Still, is six months enough time to iron out some weakness and perhaps do better. I don’t see it.
In comparison, Super rugby produced some average rugby this weekend, some average refereeing and some pretty average behaviour from some senior players who will be very disappointed that they have let themselves down, and the standards that this competition tries to promote. Last week, I pointed out some inadequacies in the refereeing and judicial processes. I guess this week is no different. What a shame…
I thought the Canes did just enough to beat the Highlanders. They have won four on the road already ! How good is that! No one rated them early doors, but they will be paying attention now won’t they? They appear to have made the shift culturally and appear to be functioning better as a team. Even Nonu (who still doesn’t use his arms in the tackle on occasions) who appeared disenfranchised in recent times, has become a better distributor, a better team player and looks so much more at peace. The ref O’Keefe has lots of potential to develop and didn’t do badly on the day. However his reading of the breakdown needs review. Far too often he was rewarding the defending team, more than any other game in the comp, and the result of this is that the shape of the game changes. It is crucial that all the referees have similar profiles when it comes to finding the correct balance between rewarding good defence and allowing the attack to flourish. In essence, the game could have produced a lot more than it was allowed to. The right coaching should fix this, but in truth this should have been done before exposing this very promising youngster to this level of rugby.
The Lions produced yet another character filled performance when they came back after defending like demons to hold off the skilled Rebels. They are a pleasure to watch, and great credit must go to their coaches for the manner in which they go about their business! The referee Mike Fraser is one of my favorite referees on the circuit, not because he is going to the RWC or is at the top of his trade but because of his style and attitude. He is very common sense, no nonsense, let’s get on with it, and the game profits from it. He made a howler in not awarding a penalty try to the Lions for a Rebel slapping the ball down with no defence in sight (clearly could not have seen the incident as he awarded a scrum to the Rebels for their transgression!) but that notwithstanding, I thought he did a fine job!
The Crusaders beat up the poor Cheetahs. They were at their ruthless best… Once they got their scrum going and forced a yellow card as well as a penalty try. The Cheetahs folded and the rest is history. People this week moaning about what was said last week, actually what I have been saying for some time – that their scrum, however powerful is not always legal. Crocketts angles at scrum time have forced two of our tight heads to get yellow cards and essentially rendered the contest over. I do not agree with those decisions , when the player is doing his best under the most testing of environments. I’m not the only one. There are many senior referees who have expressed concerns over these yellow cards. As did, the very knowledgable and admirable Justin Marshall. Time and again, they made comment on the fact that the Crusaders scrum on the loose head side was not square and parallel to the touch lines. When is something going to be done about it? I’m not sure. I’ve been talking about it for at least five years now, and my sense is that there is either a lack of will, or confusion as to how to address this. Enough said.
The Bulls were streaky against the Force who were definitely stiff not to win this one. They have tested the Bulls at Loftus before but given their recent run of form I couldn’t see it happening his time round. I was wrong. The Bulls won. They will be pleased. It will give them momentum and confidence but they are still not firing. This could well be a transition year for them.
The Sharks were the surprise package beating the Chiefs by a point as I had predicted. Mention must be made of the referee, who under the most trying of circumstances got all three red cards right. No referee likes to dish out the dreaded red, but Angus Gardner showed great courage when he needed to step up to the plate, and Elliot, Du Plessis and Steyn will need to front up to the judiciary now to explain themselves. The first two were foul play, plain and simple. The third was more complex but in my opinion correct. It is the responsibility of the tackler who lifts an opponent off the ground to ensure that he gets down safely. The fact that someone else joined in the tackle is unfortunate, and will probably be used in mitigation of sentence, but doesn’t excuse what happened. Later in the game, in the 77th minute an act of foul play wasn’t dealt with effectively, when a Chiefs player arrived knees first on to a prone Sharks player (Reinach) and got away with just a penalty. Reinach had to leave the field as a result of the incident, but who knows whether the Judicial officer will view it as a potential red card infringement? It was at the very least a yellow! That said, I would once again like to give credit to the referee, who held his nerve in this game, didn’t oversanitise, didn’t penalise everything and allowed the players to decide the outcome (those left on the field).
The Tahs beat the Brumbies comfortably (28-13) although I thought it may be closer, where crucially they were able to get their strike runners into play to create the necessary go forward in the game. They are back in the mix now. The Brumbies were full of bristle and intent but were outthought on the day.
The Canes are on top and I don’t think it’s a fluke either if you read my previous articles, I said after round 1, they are doing things differently, and are very impressive post tackle) ."
I highlighted two interesting comments of Kaplan. They deal in the main with the illegal scrumming of the Crusaders and the way the referee dealt with it. Instead of enforcing the law governing straight scrumming - the referee supported illegal scrumming with dire consequences for the Cheetahs.
Kaplan was very straight about the Steyn issue as well - and I still have the same reservations as Kaplan has on the issue. Steyn was the priomary problem in this case and to allow the primary problem to get away with it is not acceptable.
