World record equaled

Congratulations to Nigel Owens. It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international. 10-2 in favour of Ireland. It may well be fine and good. But it's the kind of performance I think the IRB should be looking at games like this for the credibility of it's own processes (i.e. it's an extreme event). I think it's worth doing even if the subjective nature of refereeing (i.e. the referee adjudges which illegal activity actually affects the game and should be penalised) undermines any review. Given the process is political rather than objective I'm not holding my breath.

I haven't seen the game. So I'm really interested in your thoughts of Owens performance. What do you think he did well? Poorly? So so.

we talking about ireland italy?

I didn't see the second half, but Owens was letting a lot go which made for a fast pace game (entertaining too as italy wanted to play). I thought it was more to the reffing style of the SH.

Owens was his usual good self. fair and almost 100% right. You didn't see the game? don't judge his performance then

nathan wrote:we talking about ireland italy?

I didn't see the second half, but Owens was letting a lot go which made for a fast pace game (entertaining too as italy wanted to play). I thought it was more to the reffing style of the SH.

Yes. Sorry should have been clearer. I wondered if he let it go, or just let Ireland go. Given that Italy were penalised 10 times (which is in line with the norm, e.g. similar to England Wales and Scotland in the weekend), whilst Ireland were only penalised 2 time (which I think has only happened once before in history of professional test rugby).

As I said earlier could all be fine. Just interested.

blackcanelion wrote:Congratulations to Nigel Owens. It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international. 10-2 in favour of Ireland. It may well be fine and good. But it's the kind of performance I think the IRB should be looking at games like this for the credibility of it's own processes (i.e. it's an extreme event). I think it's worth doing even if the subjective nature of refereeing (i.e. the referee adjudges which illegal activity actually affects the game and should be penalised) undermines any review. Given the process is political rather than objective I'm not holding my breath.

I haven't seen the game. So I'm really interested in your thoughts of Owens performance. What do you think he did well? Poorly? So so.

I'm stunned!

The fawning by the commentators over Owens got rather tedious. Having said that - no his decision making did not favour Ireland.

I have to say that the title of this thread, followed by the admission that you did not see the game does make this appear like trolling. Probably isn't but looks like it.

TJ wrote:Owens was his usual good self.  fair and almost 100% right.  You didn't see the game?  don't judge his performance then

Which is why I'm asking for others opinions, such as yourself, rather than just writing him off as biased. Given it's extreme nature of the penalty count, it's a question all fans of the game should be asking. We ask similar questions about scrums, lineouts, kicking games, running games and defence when they dominate. We should be interested when the objective data on the ref is really unusual. This is the time when we really should be looking at refs.

As I noted it could be fine. I'm interested in opinions. Even If I'd watched the game and thought he was great. I'd still want to know what people thought.

Watching it at the time it seemed ok to me. To be fair Italy got on the wrong side of the scoreboard and tried fairly hard to slow things down which may have made the penalty count a little lop sided.

My feeling is that the ruck is hardly being refereed at all, throughout the 6N in general. It seems ruck penalties are just about as fair as the 1% of crooked scrum feeds that we see pinged.

My own opinion is that refs should make the ruck clean by pinging hard and early rather than allowing the current free for all.

blackcanelion wrote:Congratulations to Nigel Owens. It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international. 10-2 in favour of Ireland. It may well be fine and good. But it's the kind of performance I think the IRB should be looking at games like this for the credibility of it's own processes (i.e. it's an extreme event). I think it's worth doing even if the subjective nature of refereeing (i.e. the referee adjudges which illegal activity actually affects the game and should be penalised) undermines any review. Given the process is political rather than objective I'm not holding my breath.

I haven't seen the game. So I'm really interested in your thoughts of Owens performance. What do you think he did well? Poorly? So so.

Seemingly Loaded comments from a person who didn't allegedly see the game and yet feels the need to highlight the problematic nature of the penalty count in a game he hasn't seen - and also peculiar that blackcanelion doesn't seem to realise the gap between 14th ranked Italy and 5th ranked Ireland?

You'd expect a more equal dispersing of penalties awarded in the interests of 'fairness' or you want to see one side's absolute dominance of most areas in the game (except tackling rates!) acknowledged by a fair ref?  Which?

LondonTiger wrote:The fawning by the commentators over Owens got rather tedious. Having said that - no his decision making did not favour Ireland.

I have to say that the title of this thread, followed by the admission that you did not see the game does make this appear like trolling. Probably isn't but looks like it.

I'm sorry you feel that way. If you've seen my posting history, you'll know that this kind of thing interests me. Irrespective of the ref, teams involved, etc. I'm unlikely to watch the game, given it's been played and I have a life outside the cloud. So this is a really efficient way for me to get a range of views on something I think is important.

BC, I think the difference between the Barnes world record and Owens in this performance might be that in the NZ v France game NZ dominated both territory and possession, and yet wore the massive disparity in penalty count. In this game
Ireland were massively dominant and benefited.
To me a different thing entirely. Owens was decent in my view. But I only watched it once, and unlikely to bother reviewing it personally.

SecretFly wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:Congratulations to Nigel Owens. It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international. 10-2 in favour of Ireland. It may well be fine and good. But it's the kind of performance I think the IRB should be looking at games like this for the credibility of it's own processes (i.e. it's an extreme event). I think it's worth doing even if the subjective nature of refereeing (i.e. the referee adjudges which illegal activity actually affects the game and should be penalised) undermines any review. Given the process is political rather than objective I'm not holding my breath.

I haven't seen the game. So I'm really interested in your thoughts of Owens performance. What do you think he did well? Poorly? So so.

Seemingly Loaded comments from a person who didn't allegedly see the game and yet feels the need to highlight the problematic nature of the penalty count in a game he hasn't seen - and also peculiar that blackcanelion doesn't seem to realise the gap between 14th ranked Italy and 5th ranked Ireland?

You'd expect a more equal dispersing of penalties awarded in the interests of 'fairness' or you want to see one side's absolute dominance of most areas in the game (except tackling rates!) acknowledged by a fair ref?

 Which?

See my earlier comments. I'm sorry you feel this way. It would point out it's a huge penalty differential and very unusual. The title highlights the extreme nature of the count. When Barnes set the record back in 2007, it was based on the analysis by professional rugby analysts on over 1000 games since the game went professional. To my knowledge this is the first time it's been equalled since then (I've looked at every major test match since then, but can't speak for club games). It is the very thing that many professionals in the game have publicly stated should be reviewed by the IRB. We get wound up about the odd possible forward pass, possible obstruction, early push in the scrum and for some reason show no concern when a penalty count is 5:1. I don't have to have seen the game for this to raise flags, nor should anyone else.

GloriousEmpire wrote:BC, I think the difference between the Barnes world record and Owens in this performance might be that in the NZ v France game NZ dominated both territory and possession, and yet wore the massive disparity in penalty count. In this game
Ireland were massively dominant and benefited.
To me a different thing entirely. Owens was decent in my view. But I only watched it once, and unlikely to bother reviewing it personally.

Nice to read a post that doesn't involve a personal attack. Thanks.

I agree. The directly opposite in that Ireland was as dominant over Italy in many of the key battle of possession as NZ was over France. Two of the key difference (from my short view of the highlights), where NZ was probably more dominant against France in the set piece, Ireland look to have been more effective at getting quick ball and getting over the advantage line (again based only on the highlights package, some earlier comments and scrum.com's stats). How the refereeing affected the breakdown would be interesting. Was it a free for all, was the defending side penalised etc. What do you think?

Owens was fair and the penalty count reflected the infringements. I would like to see Italy win but did not see any unfairness in the penalty count. I think the low count for Ireland was a couple of things. 1) the dominence of Ireland and 2) Irelands playing within the rules

nathan wrote:we talking about ireland italy?

I didn't see the second half, but Owens was letting a lot go which made for a fast pace game (entertaining too as italy wanted to play). I thought it was more to the reffing style of the SH.

Thanks Nathan. Appreciate the comments. So what do you think. Did Owens penalise the Italians for sealing off, offside etc. was it a case of the Irish having good ball and making the advantage line and the Italians being more static when taking the ball up? Was that the difference? I've seen some good attacking structure from the Irish. But there's only so much highlights can show you.

I think the problem with the initial post was your first sentence. Can this be anything but sarcastic? Add to the title calling this a "World Record" and that impression rises.

A simple was Owens fair would have served the purpose much better.

I agree that in the cold light of day a 10-2 penalty count looks a bit odd. However is it worse than the 32-8 count once given against Italy when England hammered them 12 or so years ago?

And to repeat, from a neutral Owens was not unfair to Italy.

TJ wrote:Owens was fair and the penalty count reflected the infringements.  I would like to see Italy win but did not see any unfairness in the penalty count.  I think the low count for Ireland was a couple of things.  1) the dominence of Ireland and 2) Irelands playing within the rules

Thanks TJ. Appreciate the sentiment. second point is always interesting for me given all sides infringe, and good refereeing is about deciding what infringements materially affects the game. It seems to me this varies a lot depending on who's looking at the game.

blackcanelion wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:BC, I think the difference between the Barnes world record and Owens in this performance might be that in the NZ v France game NZ dominated both territory and possession, and yet wore the massive disparity in penalty count. In this game
Ireland were massively dominant and benefited.
To me a different thing entirely. Owens was decent in my view. But I only watched it once, and unlikely to bother reviewing it personally.

Nice to read a post that doesn't involve a personal attack. Thanks.

I agree. The directly opposite in that Ireland was as dominant over Italy in many of the key battle of possession as NZ was over France. Two of the key difference (from my short view of the highlights), where NZ was probably more dominant against France in the set piece, Ireland look to have been more effective at getting quick ball and getting over the advantage line (again based only on the highlights package, some earlier comments and scrum.com's stats). How the refereeing affected the breakdown would be interesting. Was it a free for all, was the defending side penalised etc. What do you think?

As I've said many times here (and mostly been slammed for saying it) in don't like what's happening at the breakdown.

Attacking teams have players arriving and leaping headlong into the ruck. There is no binding. And guys are arriving at the fringes, unbound and kicking at the ball on the wrong side. There is bridging and sealing off aplenty and guys are deliberately going to ground on the wrong side and then playing at the ball with their bodies. It's an utter lawless shambles. A new idea just prevalent today is fairly clearly "collapsing the ruck" again illegal. Where we have guys arriving unbound and wrestling opposition defenders to the ground or into the top of the ruck.

It greatly bothers me when the referee then pings someone for doing one of these things ina a random ruck.

What we have now is less of a ruck and more of a "ball recycling area". Binding and entry position really need to be better policed.

Assuming I don't get banned at TJ's protestation, I'm going to post up some clips of this weekend's shambles and comment directly on some of these points in greater detail.

LondonTiger wrote:I think the problem with the initial post was your first sentence. Can this be anything but sarcastic? Add to the title calling this a "World Record" and that impression rises.

A simple was Owens fair would have served the purpose much better.

I agree that in the cold light of day a 10-2 penalty count looks a bit odd. However is it worse than the 32-8 count once given against Italy when England hammered them 12 or so years ago?

And to repeat, from a neutral Owens was not unfair to Italy.

Thanks LT. I take your point. No offence meant. Take it as a quick post about a subject that concerns me. It does illustrate how one sided the penalty count was is relative to 99.99% of the games we watch. I probably could have worded it another way.

My next question is: What were Italy guilty of, in your opinion?

P.s. about to sign off, so I'll have to read your response later.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:BC, I think the difference between the Barnes world record and Owens in this performance might be that in the NZ v France game NZ dominated both territory and possession, and yet wore the massive disparity in penalty count. In this game
Ireland were massively dominant and benefited.
To me a different thing entirely. Owens was decent in my view. But I only watched it once, and unlikely to bother reviewing it personally.

Nice to read a post that doesn't involve a personal attack. Thanks.

I agree. The directly opposite in that Ireland was as dominant over Italy in many of the key battle of possession as NZ was over France. Two of the key difference (from my short view of the highlights), where NZ was probably more dominant against France in the set piece, Ireland look to have been more effective at getting quick ball and getting over the advantage line (again based only on the highlights package, some earlier comments and scrum.com's stats). How the refereeing affected the breakdown would be interesting. Was it a free for all, was the defending side penalised etc. What do you think?

As I've said many times here (and mostly been slammed for saying it) in don't like what's happening at the breakdown.

Attacking teams have players arriving and leaping headlong into the ruck. There is no binding. And guys are arriving at the fringes, unbound and kicking at the ball on the wrong side. There is bridging and sealing off aplenty and guys are deliberately going to ground on the wrong side and then playing at the ball with their bodies. It's an utter lawless shambles. A new idea just prevalent today is fairly clearly "collapsing the ruck" again illegal. Where we have guys arriving unbound and wrestling opposition defenders to the ground or into the top of the ruck.

It greatly bothers me when the referee then pings someone for doing one of these things ina a random ruck.

What we have now is less of a ruck and more of a "ball recycling area". Binding and entry position really need to be better policed.

Assuming I don't get banned at TJ's protestation, I'm going to post up some clips of this weekend's shambles and comment directly on some of these points in greater detail.

Does that include 2 or three players effectively lying on the tackled player forming an obstructive defensive shield. I've noticed that creeping back into the game.

i felt owens was fair throughout the irish game - italy were having to do an astonishing amount of defending (123 tackles in the first half alone i think!) which does tend to lead to giving away quite a few penalties!

as an aside (and if I have interpreted the thread correctly) this record was equalled in the very next game where the penalty count was 13-5 in favour of france. However that game was much more even, and if anything dominated by the team who ended up on the wrong side of the penalty count. This is not sour grapes - scotland lost because they didn't take their chances and threw a badly judged pass for the intercept. Pollock was, in my opinion (and I'm sure GE will disagree) a little bit too whistle happy at ruck time, but he was consistent throughout and in the end france played the referee better than scotland did!

Ireland had a clear edge in the scrum, at least a couple of penalties were in this area. However, from memory the bulk were a team desperately trying to defend and almost permanently offside.

There was another world record - Italy made 245 tackles!!! To be honest Owens could have penalised them a lot more than he did.

Pollock was blowing up for a ruck sequence deviating from:

Tackler releases tackled player
Tackled player releases the ball
Ruck is formed when attacker and defender are in contact and ball is on ground
All players arriving after that, or before and off their feet and not in contact with the ball may not use their hands

In my view this is the correct order. I agree it's not what is called in 99% of 6N games for some reason.

Neither side adapted well, and Scotland were particularly poor at releasing the tackled player before going for the ball.

I was interested to hear the commentators explain it as a "super rugby law - which differs from northern hemisphere rugby". (That's a direct quote from Moore). However this is not a "super rugby law" at all but clearly written in the IRB laws of rugby.

Notably - boD's lauded turnover in the Italy game didn't involve him first releasing the tackled player and I believe should've been a penalty to italy.

blackcanelion wrote:


See my earlier comments. I'm sorry you feel this way. It would point out it's a huge penalty differential and very unusual. The title highlights the extreme nature of the count. When Barnes set the record back in 2007, it was based on the analysis by professional rugby analysts on over 1000 games since the game went professional. To my knowledge this is the first time it's been equalled since then (I've looked at every major test match since then, but can't speak for club games). It is the very thing that many professionals in the game have publicly stated should be reviewed by the IRB. We get wound up about the odd possible forward pass, possible obstruction, early push in the scrum and for some reason show no concern when a penalty count is 5:1. I don't have to have seen the game for this to raise flags, nor should anyone else.

But blackcanelion, you presume by your query that sides are generally of a similar calibre in that they feel compelled to do punishable things with...what?...equal frequency?

If a side is so much more dominant then surely, in logical terms, it will be the much weaker side trying to stay with them/or stay in the game that will seek to commit more punishable offences?  
Or indeed, to put it another way, it is the dominant side that will force the weaker side into giving away penalties - that's part of the nature of dominance.  
You score points, you score tries and you score penalties by applying pressure to your opponent's weak areas.
If you are a dominant side then the penalty count shouldn't appear similar.  In fact, I'd suggest that can often be the problematic area in reffing, the desire to even out things artificially.  Reffing is not about trying to find reasons for balance, it is being fair to the respective ability of two sides.

I made the judgement, rightly or wrongly, that what surprises you about all of this is that it was an Ireland v Italy game that has equalled 'the record' (a record I knew nothing about I'll admit.)

My point, and I've made it a few times now to SH observers, is that I'm not so certain you would have made an issue of a 10-2 penalty count in a game you hadn't watched had it been Italy against England, or Italy even against Wales.... I'll stretch it even to France.  I genuinely think the record's significance would have passed you by had it been any of those (SH spotlight) sides.  

Do you now understand my point?  So apologies for being a might snappy with you.  It's okay by me that you're interested in these areas on a stats basis - but I do begin to tire of this fixation, that I have certainly observed, of SH observers with all things England, Wales and France when analysing NH rugby.  Yeah, England might hit that against Italy........ but Ireland?  Questions need answered!

BTW..a question for you.  If this is only the second time this penalty disparity issue has happened in your opinion since 2007, then why would it be a contentious issue that should be reviewed by the IRB?  Two games in seven years and the professionals have been calling for reviews????

I think the idea is that there should be warning indicators of a poor performance - and penalty disparity might be one of the things that triggers a closer look.

Surely you're not suggesting it's ok for three international professional
Matches to feature biased refereeing and that we shouldn't care about it? It's the very rareness that makes it warrant a closer look.

so ge, do you feel that pollock should also be investigated for an identical disparity in penalty count? again, to emphasise, I thought both of the referees in both of these games did a good job. They interpreted the game differently but they were consistent throughout the match which is by far the most important thing.

GloriousEmpire wrote:I think the idea is that there should be warning indicators of a poor performance - and penalty disparity might be one of the things that triggers a closer look.

Surely you're not suggesting it's ok for three international professional
Matches to feature biased refereeing and that we shouldn't care about it?  It's the very rareness that makes it warrant a closer look.

That's your opinion.  That's not fact.  That could be assumed to be libelous.  The issue you want to discuss is the perception that there may be biased reffing in certain pin-pointed games...NOT that there was bias.

I couldn't care less about investigations.  If investigations are required then have them.  I repeat my point - the shock value is the country the record was repeated by.  Had the All Blacks done a 10-2 on Italy............................................. this thread wouldn't exist.

blackcanelion wrote:...It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international...

...I haven't seen the game.

When a team has the ball for pretty much the whole game, and spends most of it in the opposition half too boot, its pretty normal that the penalty count is lopsided as the defending side has a lot more reason to infringe. Don't want to sound too snarky but... maybe if you'd watched the game you wouldn't need to be told.

Notch wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:...It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international...

...I haven't seen the game.

When a team has the ball for pretty much the whole game, and spends most of it in the opposition half too boot, its pretty normal that the penalty count is lopsided as the defending side has a lot more reason to infringe. Don't want to sound too snarky but... maybe if you'd watched the game you wouldn't need to be told.

Thanks for replying Notch. If only it were so simple. It would be great if there was some simple relationship between possession and penalties. Unfortunately, it's demonstrably untrue. As mentioned above, the comparison between this and the 2007 NZ-France quarter finals are opposite in many of the stats. It's not as if that's a a one off either.

How can you slate a ref performance without seeing the game?

SecretFly wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:


See my earlier comments. I'm sorry you feel this way. It would point out it's a huge penalty differential and very unusual. The title highlights the extreme nature of the count. When Barnes set the record back in 2007, it was based on the analysis by professional rugby analysts on over 1000 games since the game went professional. To my knowledge this is the first time it's been equalled since then (I've looked at every major test match since then, but can't speak for club games). It is the very thing that many professionals in the game have publicly stated should be reviewed by the IRB. We get wound up about the odd possible forward pass, possible obstruction, early push in the scrum and for some reason show no concern when a penalty count is 5:1. I don't have to have seen the game for this to raise flags, nor should anyone else.

But blackcanelion, you presume by your query that sides are generally of a similar calibre in that they feel compelled to do punishable things with...what?...equal frequency?

If a side is so much more dominant then surely, in logical terms, it will be the much weaker side trying to stay with them/or stay in the game that will seek to commit more punishable offences?  
Or indeed, to put it another way, it is the dominant side that will force the weaker side into giving away penalties - that's part of the nature of dominance.  
You score points, you score tries and you score penalties by applying pressure to your opponent's weak areas.
If you are a dominant side then the penalty count shouldn't appear similar.  In fact, I'd suggest that can often be the problematic area in reffing, the desire to even out things artificially.  Reffing is not about trying to find reasons for balance, it is being fair to the respective ability of two sides.

I made the judgement, rightly or wrongly, that what surprises you about all of this is that it was an Ireland v Italy game that has equalled 'the record' (a record I knew nothing about I'll admit.)

My point, and I've made it a few times now to SH observers, is that I'm not so certain you would have made an issue of a 10-2 penalty count in a game you hadn't watched had it been Italy against England, or Italy even against Wales.... I'll stretch it even to France.  I genuinely think the record's significance would have passed you by had it been any of those (SH spotlight) sides.  

Do you now understand my point?  So apologies for being a might snappy with you.  It's okay by me that you're interested in these areas on a stats basis - but I do begin to tire of this fixation, that I have certainly observed, of SH observers with all things England, Wales and France when analysing NH rugby.  Yeah, England might hit that against Italy........ but Ireland?  Questions need answered!

BTW..a question for you.  If this is only the second time this penalty disparity issue has happened in your opinion since 2007, then why would it be a contentious issue that should be reviewed by the IRB?  Two games in seven years and the professionals have been calling for reviews????

Thanks secret. I think the problem as I outlined to Notch is that calibre of team and penalty count is highly variable, as is penalty count vs anything really. There are really high penalty counts relative high possession and the other way. If it was based on calibre of teams then we'd expect there to be a clear penalty count bias towards teams like NZ and South Africa when they play 6 nations sides for instance. We obviously don't. Owen's himself has said that refereeing is extremely subjective (I.e. you penalise what you perceive affects the game).

In terms of stats, anything that has a huge blowout is interesting. It's not necessarily that something untoward happened, but it does beg the question what happened. It's very rare for a team to only concede 2 penalties. My understanding is that it is commonplace for teams to each commit 40 or so penalisable offenses. The question is why only 2 were penalised. It's important to ask the question. To fail to do so potentially brings the management of the game into disrepute. It seems to me if you can have a penalty count like this and not investigate it the sport may well be corruptible. That's not to say that Owen's refereeing was poor or biased. But IMO a situation like this should scrutinised as a rule.

Scratch wrote:How can you slate a ref performance without seeing the game?

I'm not slating it. I've made that very clear. I am asking questions. The main one being why was it so one sided.

The main one being why was it so one sided.

So you'll be also starting a thread about Pollock's performance in the following match in a similair vein?

TrailApe wrote:

The main one being why was it so one sided.

So you'll be also starting a thread about Pollock's performance in the following match in a similair vein?

Sure, if the stats are extremely unusual. It's not. However, it's worth discussing. My understanding is that some fans had an issue with his management of the tackler/ruck. Not having seen the game I'd guess that he penalised players for things not releasing the tackled player before going for the ball, going off their feet and maybe not rolling away. That's just a guess based on him and the six nations games I've watched so far.

Notch wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:...It looks like he's equaled Wayne Barnes for the most one sided penalty count in an international...

...I haven't seen the game.

When a team has the ball for pretty much the whole game, and spends most of it in the opposition half too boot, its pretty normal that the penalty count is lopsided as the defending side has a lot more reason to infringe. Don't want to sound too snarky but... maybe if you'd watched the game you wouldn't need to be told.

Which just underscores how bizarre Wayne Barnes performance was...