Time for the Welsh regions to walk away !!!!!

First topic message reminder :

I know that I am going to take bashing off the Irish supporters here, but for far to long we have seen biased reffing when it comes to the big three provinces from Ireland. Tonight Munster were allowed to do what they wanted, and Paul Tito as captian was just dismissed by the ref like a little school boy. What I just watched was scandelous. I think the WRU should have a shorter club season then have a regional competition at the end of the year and stick two fingers up to the IRFU because there is clearley an agenda aimed at keeping the Irish clubs on top. For to long I have watched Munster, Leinster, Ulster basicaly get games gifted to them by Irish refs, and I am always being told that it is because the Irish teams know how to play the ref, Blah,Blah,Blah. Last season I remember the the same happening. I do not care what anybody types here to tell me I am wrong, because I know what I just saw. Tonights ref let even more obvious forward passes go for Munster than the last one for the Blues, and do not get me started with the scrum. He constantly warned the Blues about their dicsipline but Munster gave away more penalties. How can we expect this league to progress with this standard of reffing. Munster were gifted the game tonight by a very poor ref, no wonder people do not want to turn up for these games when we have performances from certain refs who are so biased it is unbeleivable.

And I said he is a useless ref.

Notch wrote:

Cymroglan wrote:

red_stag wrote:

Cymroglan wrote:Wilkinson is a useless ref and that's also a fact.

None off us are disputing that however I dont think this is your argument.

What ?

He's saying that people have been saying referees are biased against their teams not that he's just a bad ref. To question a refs ability is valid. To question his integrity is out of line.

If you watched the Ospreys game the week before you may understand why Alyn stated his point of view so strongly

Notch wrote:As unimpressive as he was, the penalty count was not really that much in Cardiffs favour. At one point, about 60 minutes in, the commentators mentioned that both sides had conceded 7 penalties each. The only decision you could really object to was Munster not getting a yellow card when they offended in the red zone near the end, which is just a judgement call. Nobody is saying he had a good game you understand but Cardiff took a bit too long to adapt to his interpretation. And instead of asking him how he wanted them to play the breakdown they talked back and questioned his judgements.

God dammit Notch....
I have stated clearly I can't comment on his performance against the Blues because I haven't seen the game yet.
I was talking about him in the Edinburgh match when he had his own linesmen shaking their heads, and the fans practicaly rioting, and the stewards making a border around the stand to stop irate Ospreys fans lynching him...

As for the other comments on what I have posted, I do question the intergrity of refs because in Fitzgibbons case he was deliberatly giving everything to Leinster so they wouldn't get smashed out of sight at the Ospreys, and used any excuse to ping the Ospreys to take momentum out of their game when it was clear that Leinster could potentially lose to a cricket score.
He literally only refereed the Ospreys for the first 25 minutes of the second half, and let Leinster get away with everything, to help them get into the game.
When a referee does that you can question their ethics.

Wilkinson is even worse, but I have said enough about that naughty naughty boy.

AlynDavies wrote:When a referee does that you can question their ethics.

When a fan says that I can only question their eyesight and ability to watch a match impartially.

I find it rather sad that after a performance that has annoyed fans, the article isn't about how to improve standards but instead it's about just pulling out.

greybeard wrote:When a fan says that I can only question their eyesight and ability to watch a match impartially.

I find it rather sad that after a performance that has annoyed fans, the article isn't about how to improve standards but instead it's about just pulling out.

No offence GreyBeard but I have attended about 10+ games this season, and been to all 4 regions and Newport RFC so far, I am at nearly every game as a neutral observer.

Alyn, your insistence that the iRB are somehow the rugby Illuminati gives the impression you find it hard to be neutral at all.

Calling a ref poor is one thing, but actively corrupt? If Tommy Bowe drops a ball when the Ospreys are playing Irish opposition, is it because he wants to cheat his own team out of the win? No, he makes a mistake. Refs do to.

greybeard wrote:Alyn, your insistence that the iRB are somehow the rugby Illuminati gives the impression you find it hard to be neutral at all.

Calling a ref poor is one thing, but actively corrupt? If Tommy Bowe drops a ball when the Ospreys are playing Irish opposition, is it because he wants to cheat his own team out of the win? No, he makes a mistake. Refs do to.

Again you are painting everything I have said with one brush, instead of reading what I have written and being objective about it.
I think the IRB have told referees at the World Cup to help teams getting hammered out of sight. Having massive 100 point score lines undermines everything the IRB have tried to do, so easing off on marginal decisions against countries who are being smashed is sensible.
You could argue Russia got a little help against Italy, and Japan against New Zealand too, maybe it's just sympathetic refereeing from the ref himself. I don't think it's cheating just something I have noticed, I'm not even saying it is wrong under certain circumstances.

glamorganalun wrote:

Notch wrote:

Cymroglan wrote:

red_stag wrote:

Cymroglan wrote:Wilkinson is a useless ref and that's also a fact.

None off us are disputing that however I dont think this is your argument.

What ?

He's saying that people have been saying referees are biased against their teams not that he's just a bad ref. To question a refs ability is valid. To question his integrity is out of line.

If you watched the Ospreys game the week before you may understand why Alyn stated his point of view so strongly

The Ospreys game wasn't on TV unfortunately, so I can hardly comment on what I haven't seen, this thread is about his performance last night. I notice now Scarlets fans are chanting 'cheat' at the referee tonight.

Notch wrote:The Ospreys game wasn't on TV unfortunately, so I can hardly comment on what I haven't seen, this thread is about his performance last night. I notice now Scarlets fans are chanting 'cheat' at the referee tonight.

Download the games off BBC and S4C I player?

You use the word deliberatly too loosely. Wilkinson is not capable of refereeing effectively at this level I agree. However I know that neither he nor Peter Fitzibbon are silly enough to take an agenda into those matches. Wilkinson was assessed last night by the WRU they are going to grade his performance.

red_stag wrote:Wilkinson was assessed last night by the WRU they are going to grade his performance.

that comment has made me so happy, if you were female, I'd strip you naked and cover you in chocolate sauce

AlynDavies wrote:
I have stated clearly I can't comment on his performance against the Blues because I haven't seen the game yet.
I was talking about him in the Edinburgh match when he had his own linesmen shaking their heads, and the fans practicaly rioting, and the stewards making a border around the stand to stop irate Ospreys fans lynching him...

I'm sorry but whilst I can't and won't comment on a referees performance when I haven't seen the game, I find the implication that Ospreys fans were 'practically rioting' to be pretty scary. I mean, come on lads it's just a game... Are you serious? That just does not seem to be part of rugby. It's something creeping into the game in Wales I don't like.

Sure, at Ravenhill and wherever- every rugby ground really- there are fans who will disagree with the refs interpretation but I've never felt the safety of the officials to be at stake. That's quite disturbing actually, I really hope you are exaggerating.

AlynDavies wrote:

Notch wrote:The Ospreys game wasn't on TV unfortunately, so I can hardly comment on what I haven't seen, this thread is about his performance last night. I notice now Scarlets fans are chanting 'cheat' at the referee tonight.

Download the games off BBC and S4C I player?

Feic sake Alyn- how many games of rugby do you think I'm going to watch in a week?

AlynDavies wrote:

red_stag wrote:Wilkinson was assessed last night by the WRU they are going to grade his performance.

that comment has made me so happy, if you were female, I'd strip you naked and cover you in chocolate sauce

He'll still get games though. His Ospreys v Edinburgh game was also assessed and graded by WRU.

red_stag wrote:

AlynDavies wrote:

red_stag wrote:Wilkinson was assessed last night by the WRU they are going to grade his performance.

that comment has made me so happy, if you were female, I'd strip you naked and cover you in chocolate sauce

He'll still get games though. His Ospreys v Edinburgh game was also assessed and graded by WRU.

Is it not standard practice for all referees to be assessed after the games? And is it always by the union hosting the match?

red_stag wrote:He'll still get games though. His Ospreys v Edinburgh game was also assessed and graded by WRU.

Yes but surely too many black marks against your name and you will get demoted ofthe Rabo direct referees panel?

Notch wrote:

red_stag wrote:

AlynDavies wrote:

red_stag wrote:Wilkinson was assessed last night by the WRU they are going to grade his performance.

that comment has made me so happy, if you were female, I'd strip you naked and cover you in chocolate sauce

He'll still get games though. His Ospreys v Edinburgh game was also assessed and graded by WRU.

Is it not standard practice for all referees to be assessed after the games? And is it always by the union hosting the match?

Yes to both Notch. Alyn he really only is here as we have extra fixtures and are missing a lot of referees. He made a mess of Leinster v Munster a few years.ago. Weak inexperienced refs is part and parcel of world cup year.

have to say most matches i have seen from pro 12 and last season (ml) the refs have generally been quite poor, nothing to do with nationality but in general i have seen so many errors blindingly obvious to me- i understand refing a match is difficult and they dont see everything but looking at the blues match- ref was harsh to Tito and so many penalties not given to the blues which should have been, the last try looked flat and i think the ref should have looked to support from the touch judge who was in a much better angle but its life- the blues didnt take their chances- munster have good kickers and in the end kielty's kicking paid dividence in the end.

welshy

You raise an issue there that is important. Refs at this level are inexperienced but i find that TJ's arent very quick to make calls like they are at international level. Thats a massive issue.

One thing i would say is that James Jones was the laughing stock of home referees not long ago but i have to confess to being impressed with him in the last season or so. He still makes mistakes but is much more consistent in his calls.

When an Irish team loses the fans and press crucify the team. When Rocky Elsom was here he said how surprisingly personal the criticism was, but it all comes from a passion for rugby and pride in the team. We probably are hard on them but at least looking at our own performance is a healthy enough way to deal with disappointment. The Welsh are obviously very passionate about rugby too, we all know that. But the Welsh disease seems to be to blindly believe their players are great and search for excuses whenever they lose. The biased ref is the most common one. There's an article about how poor the ref was after nearly every match a Welsh team loses. None when they win.

I think some Welsh fans need to grow up and realize that the best team wins on the day. If it's not your team then tough luck. They'll have to play better next time. The quality of the refs in the Pro 12 is definitely worth a topic on here. But the tone of this one is that Irish refs are deliberately cheating the Welsh teams out of results. Not the Scots or Italians mind you. They're just singling out the Welsh apparently. What a coincidence that the Irish teams also happen to be the best in the league. Maybe that has something to do with the results? I'm sorry, this is my second rant on this article. But people not being able to accept a loss like a man always annoys me. I actually love the Welsh. They are the BEST craic of any fans when they come to Dublin. I just find the excuses annoying and pathetic.

I think it's just best of Welsh and Irish fans agree to disagree on some of these issues.
I am grown up, and can happily accept referees make mistakes, and am more than capable of making my own judgements when I think a referee isn't flying straight and not applying the rules of the game to both teams.

Wales has a few good referees, at least I hope so, though I can;t think of any off the top of my head!

Ireland have quite a few, Rowlands if my favorite referee, though I do think he should not be allowed to referee cartain teams, as being half French he does seem to somewhat give the French the 50/50 calls. but if he is refereeing Wales I am always happy to see him.

I guess years ago there would never be any issues with referees and generally you would not know who the referee was, you just knew there would be one within the game. But in the modern era, where money is at stake, everything is scrutinised bad calls can cause a lot of problems.

All teams have their fair share of good and bad luck with referees, Wales got lucky with that Irish line out in the 6 Nations. When the Scottish linesman messed up.

Wales got unlucky against Italy when we asked the ref if we had time for the lineout, to be told clearly "yes", then when we kick to touch, Barnes changes his mind and blows for full time! It swings in round abouts and can have serious consequences.

I do think however the policy of having Away team referees from the same nation is clearly leading to a lot of issues, and problems amongst the different sets of fans.

In the Rabodirect no one really cares if we lose an away game, it isnt the end of the world, but losing home games can be a problem. When Welsh teams start playing in Ireland with Welsh referees and we have a few "dodgy" calls going our way, it's obvious the Irish fans will be on here spitting venom, in the same way the Welsh fans are now.

Common sense should tell you, you are going to give the benefit of the doubt to the people you are more familiar with.

David Wilkinson (IRFU) is clearly not up to the standard required and needs to be put back down to a club level more suited to him. He is causing far too many problems at games, hopefully the assesors will do that sooner or later.

Fitzgibbon (IRFU) is a decent test standard referee, however he really needs to learn accept if he is reffing an Irish team and their losing heavily, then he should let them lose, not try and "help" them get back into the game.

Andrew McMenemy (SRFU) is a decent referee, but he doesn't like dishing cards out, and lets teams get away with murder at the ruck which ruins any chance of a flowing game. Penalising a team every few minutes for an entire half for various offences in the ruck, then carding a player 2 minutes from the end, is no way to referee a game. If he had done it earlier then the game would of been a better spectacle.

You've made ridiculous, unsubstantiated, claims about corruption and bias, and when posters question that you expect us to agree to disagree... I see.

Who is Rowlands? Never heard of him.

greybeard wrote:You've made ridiculous, unsubstantiated, claims about corruption and bias, and when posters question that you expect us to agree to disagree... I see.

Who is Rowlands? Never heard of him.

Bah bloody spelling again, you know who I meant... Alain Rolland.
Yes I think the best solution is to agree to disagree on some of the issues raised in the topic, it's already 3 pages long and were no sooner to agreeing on the issues raised, were just arguing in round abouts, or worse still someone will read the first post and comment only on that, and we will go round in circles again.

Alyn fans like you are ruining a game I love. You have sadly made me really dispair for how rugbybis headed.

Alyn I should also say that I would give the same apalled response to the MUnster fans who go.on about how Roman Poite wants.us to lose. Its.not an Ospreys or a Welsh thing nut rather a trend.amongst fans I.see creeping in.

i think people are being far too specific- blaming the IRFU for the blues losing a game and the IRISH ref being biaed.

the truth is the blues didnt finish their chances- the ref like many others have been poor. TJ dont communicate with the ref as much as they should.

this is not a conspiracy that IRFU want wales to suffer just the fact welsh teams far too often dont take their opportunities.

and yes welsh fans do tend to blame the ref alot- this is partly as there are a few irritating decisions which never go our way which cause us to sometiems feel robbed, but then we shouldnt put ourselves in those positions to lose matches and it is a bit of devastation that wales have lost a game which fans feel they could have won.

however i doubt it is just welsh fans i am sure most other countries do look for reasons why they lost matches and many include refs decisions, but the fact is refs dont see everything and i have huge respect for the ref as lets be honest no one likes the ref there are always decisions which go against you which makes you feel you are playing 16 (not the Ospreys tactic but the ref!) but thats life

red_stag wrote:Alyn fans like you are ruining a game I love. You have sadly made me really dispair for how rugbybis headed.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but obviously I don't agree. I think the referees are ruining the game because so much is happening on games that they are simply not seeing and reacting too.
Clearly the TMO needs to get more involved and give the referee more advice of what is happening, especially in situations where the referee has fallen behind play.

Week after week we seem to be talking more and more about refereeing issues, it could be because there is only so fit players can get and games are getting closer, therefore small referee's mistakes can be the difference between winning and losing.

However I do think the new Celtic / Italian league policy of having referees from the same nation as the away side at matches is causing a lot of issues. Clearly the referee is going to subconsciously favour the people he knows best, and that is going to incense home crowd when the 50/50 calls go against them.

AlynDavies wrote:

red_stag wrote:Alyn fans like you are ruining a game I love. You have sadly made me really dispair for how rugbybis headed.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but obviously I don't agree. I think the referees are ruining the game because so much is happening on games that they are simply not seeing and reacting too.
Clearly the TMO needs to get more involved and give the referee more advice of what is happening, especially in situations where the referee has fallen behind play.

Week after week we seem to be talking more and more about refereeing issues, it could be because there is only so fit players can get and games are getting closer, therefore small referee's mistakes can be the difference between winning and losing.

However I do think the new Celtic / Italian league policy of having referees from the same nation as the away side at matches is causing a lot of issues. Clearly the referee is going to subconsciously favour the people he knows best, and that is going to incense home crowd when the 50/50 calls go against them.

Alyn, man, I don't know what you want from referees I really don't.

The TMO needs to get more involved with the referee in situations where he falls behind play? The TMO? Seriously? The game has become stop/start enough with all the scrums and you want the referee to stop every now and then to consult with the TMO too? Really?

I also disagree that week after week we seem to be talking about referees. A large Welsh contingent on 606 certainly do but I don't see articles by Irish/Scottish/English people every week. It goes to those posters innate problems with accepting defeat IMO. Every week it's the referees fault. Never their own teams. Very rarely will a referees mistake really be the difference between winning and losing. Rugby is a complex game and mistakes will naturally happen from time to time but the better team on the day will always get opportunities to rectify that. If they don't take those opportunities is it still the referees fault that they've lost?

On your referees reffing teams from their own country point, they are not clearly going to favour any team. Do you really believe referees are incapable of being impartial. Nigel Owens referees our provinces very often when we're playing teams from Wales and he has no problem being impartial. Neither do our referees. Even James Jones, who I've often been frustrated by, is clearly not bias in favour of Welsh teams. I just can't accept your point that referees subconsciously favour any team.

Finally, do you really feel a crowd gets incensed when a 50/50 call goes against them? That in a nutshell is your problem. You, I assume, and a certain portion of the crowd, need to stop getting incensed when a referee makes an impartial judgement call based on what he's seen.

who's the large Welsh contingent mrsuperclear? I can only think of a couple of Welsh posters that keep bringing up the ref as the person to blame for a teams loss.

And just to clarify I don't think the ref's in the Pro12 are bias at all. The standard of refereeing is certainly something that needs looking at but I don't think I've ever seen a ref purposefully favour one side over another.

In terms of the group people who consistently give out about referees, that group has a large Welsh contingent. I didn't mean that the majority of Welsh posters on 606 give out about referees. Please don't make me look through articles and compile a list dreamer, I'm very tired

ha no worries I wont

I think perhaps though you're confusing the matter where it's only a couple of Welsh posters , it's just that they do it so frequently. Some people will do that no matter where they're from.

Dreamer IMO it is becoming a bigger problem and not limited to Welsh. My own team Munster are one of biggest offenders. This standard of refereeing is nothing new. The attitude to it looks alarming.

mrsuperclear wrote:Alyn, man, I don't know what you want from referees I really don't.

The TMO needs to get more involved with the referee in situations where he falls behind play? The TMO? Seriously? The game has become stop/start enough with all the scrums and you want the referee to stop every now and then to consult with the TMO too? Really?

I also disagree that week after week we seem to be talking about referees. A large Welsh contingent on 606 certainly do but I don't see articles by Irish/Scottish/English people every week. It goes to those posters innate problems with accepting defeat IMO. Every week it's the referees fault. Never their own teams. Very rarely will a referees mistake really be the difference between winning and losing. Rugby is a complex game and mistakes will naturally happen from time to time but the better team on the day will always get opportunities to rectify that. If they don't take those opportunities is it still the referees fault that they've lost?

On your referees reffing teams from their own country point, they are not clearly going to favour any team. Do you really believe referees are incapable of being impartial. Nigel Owens referees our provinces very often when we're playing teams from Wales and he has no problem being impartial. Neither do our referees. Even James Jones, who I've often been frustrated by, is clearly not bias in favour of Welsh teams. I just can't accept your point that referees subconsciously favour any team.

Finally, do you really feel a crowd gets incensed when a 50/50 call goes against them? That in a nutshell is your problem. You, I assume, and a certain portion of the crowd, need to stop getting incensed when a referee makes an impartial judgement call based on what he's seen.

Play doesn't have to be stopped for the TMO to get involved, the TMO could easily have a chat in the referees ear if he misses something blindingly obvious. He could easily watch the game on tv and if the referee is having trouble in a particular area of the game, then the assistants and TMO could help advise him as situations occur.

Genuine idea: do away with the on field referee. Let the whole match be refereed by the TMO.

Benefits:

- Nobody can question ref during match
- IRB don't have to pay transport costs for referees
- You are getting most accurate officiating available

red_stag wrote:Genuine idea: do away with the on field referee. Let the whole match be refereed by the TMO.

So how we do get the players to stop playing during the game when the TMO needs to make a decision?

Who breaks the fights up when they occur?

How do we get the players to the exact spot an incident was deemed to occur at?

AlynDavies wrote:So how we do get the players to stop playing during the game when the TMO needs to make a decision?

Electric collars.

AlynDavies wrote:Who breaks the fights up when they occur?

Visciously electric collars

AlynDavies wrote:How do we get the players to the exact spot an incident was deemed to occur at?

Less viscious electric collars that use a 'getting warmer/getting colder' philosophy

Job's a good 'un

greybeard wrote:Electric collars.
Visciously electric collars
Less viscious electric collars that use a 'getting warmer/getting colder' philosophy
Job's a good 'un

I can only bow to your logic
However we will only agree provided they are not made in Ireland!

"I was talking about him in the Edinburgh match when he had his own linesmen shaking their heads, and the fans practicaly rioting, and the stewards making a border around the stand to stop irate Ospreys fans lynching him..."

I find this a whole lot more worrying than the standard of referees in the Pro12.

Please tell me this is an exageration.

If it is true it is an absolute disgrace!

Alyn - if players need to be restrained use stewards. A whistle airhorn system can alert them to stoppage in play and a spotlight/laser can make the mark on the field. Real easy

MrsP - fully agree with you. I suspect its a big exaggeration. If not it paints Ospreys in an awful light.

Of course it's a exaggeration or it would have been all over the sports pages.

Well then why haven't we had an other fans who were at the game contradicting it?

And why does Alyn seem to think it was a perfectly reasonable response in the circumstances?

Is he just making this up?

Because most of us have moved on and do people need to contradict everything ?

No, we don't need to have everything contradicted but the suggestion that a ref had to be protected from fans at a Pro12 game is a pretty big accusation!

Do you honestly believe you would not have heard about it before now ?
Do you not think it would have been all over the sport pages ?
Any nonsense like that would have been reported by the match officials.

When we read stuff on forums like this common sense needs to be used to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Sooo...

You're saying he made it up?

I'm just using a bit of common sense but if you want to believe it happened so be it.

I think we would hear about it if anyone actually tried to get on the pitch. I don't think we would hear about it otherwise. Sounds like a touch of exaggeration. Don't stewards normally surround the pitch at full time at major sporting events?

You need binoculars to spot a steward in the Liberty

I really really don't want to believe it, but you seem to be the only Welsh fan on here who doubts it.

And none have been outraged.

It would just be so so sad if it even had a grain of truth in it.

I think you do want to believe it and thats why you hope nobody will come on here and say it's not true,
Of course it's not true or there would have been one major stink about it.
Nobody else has denied it because they know full well thats it's a non story.