Unlucky Scotland

Your World cup is probably end next week even if you beat England. The points difference will be your downfall. Wayne Barnes make a refereeing blunder at the end and the Scottish should of have a penalty straight in front of the posts. The Argentinians were ridiculously offside.

Poor refereeing decisions and then we lose by a point.

I expect some sympathy from our Welsh brethren on these boards...

Barnes amateur refereeing aside. We had our chances and did not take them. Townsend has to fall on his sword and shoulder the blame for not being able to get some scores out of all that possession and territory.

I saw at least one scrum penalty when the Scottish tighthead bound on the arm but the loosehead got penalised for losing the bind. I don't doubt for a second that if you went through every single game you would find, 10s or 100s of missed infringements, forward passes, etc. No point focusing on one (unless it makes you feel better)

Why does every team that loses have to bring up a refereeing decision, I personally think Barnes didn't have a bad match. every match has one or two decisions that goes the wrong way.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Barnes amateur refereeing aside. We had our chances and did not take them. Townsend has to fall on his sword and shoulder the blame for not being able to get some scores out of all that possession and territory.

I totally agree... New Zealand would put 50 pts on that team with that possession and teritory. It beggars belief, we have scored 4 ries and played the three weakest teams!

Yes, Barnes made a high profile blunder at the end, but we should have set that drop goal chance much much better. Parks should have been deeper and the pass much better.

In a similar situation in 2003, Dawson made it clear to the ref that Australia were creeping forward before spinning the pass. Blair should have done the same. It was a penalty and Scotland should have won, but we had plenty opportunities to finish off that game, not to mention the 5 missed tackles leading up to the try (CP's cover tackle was pathetic).

I'm gutted, because we should have won given the possession and territory we had. We only have ourselves to blame for that horrible sequence of events leading up to the Argentina try. We switched off and paid a heavy price.

No point in blaming Barnes, we can only look to ourselves - the team at the end of the game with the most points on the board wins. We were naive in midfield, bossed badly at the breakdown, Arg had one chance and we chose that moment to tackle like touch rugby players

Barnes (as with most refs) missed stuff and made what to our view were wrong decisions.

My biggest problem with his decisions was making the tackler release the player tackled yet letting the tackled player then stand up. A couple of times he penalised the Argentinian tackler, but always let the Scottish attacker get up. Personally I feel the law needs to be amended as far too open to interpretation - the bane of Rugby. Tackler must release, tackled player must immediatley play the ball or let go - irrespective of if he is held. If he wants to carry on with the ball he should have to let go and get to his feet.

Despite this Scotland lost because of all their usual failings - clunky and laboured passing.

And their inability to score tries

Like us (wales) two weeks ago you can't blame the ref all the time. Scotland had all the territory and possesion but hardly vere really threatened the line or looked like scoring.

Our best try scoring opportunity was in the corner when for some reason Rory Lawson thought it better to take on 4 Argentina forwards by himself, rather than pass to his left where there was a massive overlap. At key times we made bad decisions. Max Evans had a great game in attack and made several half breaks, but his teammates rarely went with him and we got turned over. Good teams like New Zealand have backs who are almost as good at forwards as winning ruck ball. In that regard NDL and CP were too lightweight at the ruck area, so when half breaks were made, Argentina would just turnover the ball.

Extremely frustrating.

Now we need Georgia to do us a massive favour. Come on Richie Dixon!!

Commiserations fellas. Going down by a point is the pits.

funnyExiledScot wrote: At key times we made bad decisions. Max Evans had a great game in attack and made several half breaks, but his teammates rarely went with him and we got turned over. Good teams like New Zealand have backs who are almost as good at forwards as winning ruck ball. In that regard NDL and CP were too lightweight at the ruck area, so when half breaks were made, Argentina would just turnover the ball.

Yeah this has been an issue for so long, I don't know what our players are coached at their clubs. It certainly isn't basics like passing and rucking. The intensity that SA and NZ take to these areas is night and day compared with us. I even see it when we play France and Ireland, BOD and Rougerie for instance are really good at turning over possesion for their teams. It is a fundamental part of thge modern professional game and like most things since the game went pro, Scotland are years behind our peers.

Redrage wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote: At key times we made bad decisions. Max Evans had a great game in attack and made several half breaks, but his teammates rarely went with him and we got turned over. Good teams like New Zealand have backs who are almost as good at forwards as winning ruck ball. In that regard NDL and CP were too lightweight at the ruck area, so when half breaks were made, Argentina would just turnover the ball.

Yeah this has been an issue for so long, I don't know what our players are coached at their clubs. It certainly isn't basics like passing and rucking. The intensity that SA and NZ take to these areas is night and day compared with us. I even see it when we play France and Ireland, BOD and Rougerie for instance are really good at turning over possesion for their teams. It is a fundamental part of thge modern professional game and like most things since the game went pro, Scotland are years behind our peers.

Ross Rennie anyone?

justified sinner wrote:

Redrage wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote: At key times we made bad decisions. Max Evans had a great game in attack and made several half breaks, but his teammates rarely went with him and we got turned over. Good teams like New Zealand have backs who are almost as good at forwards as winning ruck ball. In that regard NDL and CP were too lightweight at the ruck area, so when half breaks were made, Argentina would just turnover the ball.

Yeah this has been an issue for so long, I don't know what our players are coached at their clubs. It certainly isn't basics like passing and rucking. The intensity that SA and NZ take to these areas is night and day compared with us. I even see it when we play France and Ireland, BOD and Rougerie for instance are really good at turning over possesion for their teams. It is a fundamental part of thge modern professional game and like most things since the game went pro, Scotland are years behind our peers.

Ross Rennie anyone?

We badly missed him today. Barclay has a long way to go to unseat him imo, his form is way off what we have come to expect. The discussion above was about our backs not having the skill set that our peers have, but if you look at our forwards they were also lacking in this dept today. I don't think Rennie could take on the whole Argentinian pack by himself. Too many players were too slow in getting involved today and our backs aren't as strong as some other teams in preventing this (Lamont aside).

Dan Parks is an Argentine legend after that choke!

Which choke?

HammerofThunor wrote:I saw at least one scrum penalty when the Scottish tighthead bound on the arm but the loosehead got penalised for losing the bind. I don't doubt for a second that if you went through every single game you would find, 10s or 100s of missed infringements, forward passes, etc. No point focusing on one (unless it makes you feel better)

Absolutely. For the entire 1st half, Scottish TH was preventing Roncero from binding. He should have been binned many times over.
Plus Barnes may have missed an offside, but there are doubtless other 50:50 calls that will have gone your way during the game.

That's certainly right, the scrum reffing was a complete lottery with both sides receiving odd calls. As you pointed out, Cross was pulling down Roncero's arm at one stage and Roncero got penalised. On another occassion Cross slipped in the mud (for which a reset should have been called) and Argentina won a penalty. On another occassion Scotland were penalised for pushing early, when Argentina deliberately faded on the hit.