Specsavers Fair Play League Pro12

Congratulations to Connacht for topping the Specsavers Fair Play League For the Pro12

http://www.pro12rugby.com/statzone/specsavers_fair_play_league.php#VfuHYYLg0807Jke9.97

Poor taste this article!!!

To be honest I was quite impressed by how well disciplined Connacht have been. Only 8 cards for the whole league is pretty impressive, that's only one card every 3 games.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:To be honest I was quite impressed by how well disciplined Connacht have been.  Only 8 cards for the whole league is pretty impressive, that's only one card every 3 games.

may well be a huge part for the much improved season. less cards=less penalties=less points conceded

but hang on i thought Glasgow were the cheating team in the pro 12. ?

I see Ulster came in last, which is somewhat ironic given the significant number of Ulster supporters who have said in their own posts on these boards that Glasgow is a cheating club !!

clearly not the case.

Goodin - I would have to agree with you on that one.  When you look at the teams that are at the top of the Pro12, they all in the top of the Fair Play table too.  With the exception of Ulster, but if you take the 4 upheld citings out of the equation they would be up there too on 16pts.

So there is certainly a correlation between teams who are 'clean' doing far better than teams who are not.

Does anyone have the figures for last season?  It feels like there were more citings this year but less yellows in games?

Also, what are peoples views on the citings? Surely if a TMO is doing his job any off-the-ball or dangerous acts should be picked up during the game?

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Goodin - I would have to agree with you on that one.  When you look at the teams that are at the top of the Pro12, they all in the top of the Fair Play table too.  With the exception of Ulster, but if you take the 4 upheld citings out of the equation they would be up there too on 16pts.

So there is certainly a correlation between teams who are 'clean' doing far better than teams who are not.

Spiderman, you should get a job doing public relations for the Vatican or the Walt Disney corporation.
if you take the 4 upheld citings out of the equation they would be up there too

Someone less linguistically skilled than yourself might say that more citings upheld than any other side would put them fairly and squarely at the bottom, but your ability to gloss over heinous practicises and see the positive side in everything is impressive indeed.

I have tried to look it up but can't find last years Fair Play table, but I believe Ulster won it (if not last year the year before), and I know both the Scarlets and Blues topped it in the past too.

I do agree that a TMO should pick up on anything during the game, and if there is something that is worthy of a ban it really should be dealt with during the game via cards.  Citings, and bans are a bit of a lose lose situation for the team that have been offended.  As they do not reap any reward for being wronged, and then they can also lose out by their opponents in the league playing against weakened opposition due to the ban player not being available.

This season there have been -:

153 yellow cards
10 red cards
9 upheld citings

That doesn't seem to bad to me personally.

And if you discount shooting of all those people, ED-209 was a totally viable replacement for RoboCop.

jimbopip wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Goodin - I would have to agree with you on that one.  When you look at the teams that are at the top of the Pro12, they all in the top of the Fair Play table too.  With the exception of Ulster, but if you take the 4 upheld citings out of the equation they would be up there too on 16pts.

So there is certainly a correlation between teams who are 'clean' doing far better than teams who are not.

Spiderman, you should get a job doing public relations for the Vatican or the Walt Disney corporation.
if you take the 4 upheld citings out of the equation they would be up there too

Someone less linguistically skilled than yourself might say that more citings upheld than any other side would put them fairly and squarely at the bottom, but your ability to gloss over heinous practicises and see the positive side in everything is impressive indeed.

Not trying to gloss over anything, trying to be diplomatic.

No, no Spidey those bad bad Ulstermen provoked the Saintly Niko into taking a dive: they deserve all they get.

It would be interesting to find a full list of citings, just to see what % of them are up held and how many are not.

So we scored the highest points....... Do we win a cup

Thank God we mostly behaved ourselves..................... mostly.


Maybe we were too honest though? A few more yellows and reds and we might have made it to the playoffs....

Well done Ulster

IanBru wrote:And if you discount shooting of all those people, ED-209 was a totally viable replacement for RoboCop.

See how good the Ospreys have been with Ian Evans moving away!

IanBru wrote:And if you discount shooting of all those people, ED-209 was a totally viable replacement for RoboCop.

Sorry dude that comment is the most outrageous thing I've read on this forum...  Didn't you see the one where an Ed-209 fell down the man hole an was stuck and crying? (from 1:10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moYXL6hX8vI

Neither did Robocop cry when he fell down the stairs...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MS4sLlBvbE

jimbopip wrote:No, no Spidey those bad bad Ulstermen provoked the Saintly Niko into taking a dive: they deserve all they get.

Niko did not dive tho - he was on the receiving end of a high tackle. A dive is when there is no contact and you fake a foul. Niko was fouled. He just made sure the ref knew it.

TJ wrote:

jimbopip wrote:No, no Spidey those bad bad Ulstermen provoked the Saintly Niko into taking a dive: they deserve all they get.

Niko did not dive tho - he was on the receiving end of a high tackle.  A dive is when there is no contact and you fake a foul.  Niko was fouled.  He just made sure the ref knew it.

He just made sure the ref knew it by.......?

The top 3 red cards are

Treviso 3
=Scarlets 2
=Ulster 2


The top 5 yellow cards are:

Zebre - 26 (impressive!) - that's over 3 matches worth of 14 player teams.
Edinburgh - 19 (who knew?)
Treviso - 16
Cardiff - 13
=Glasgow 12
= Dragons 12

Leinster and Connacht are the saints with just 8 apiece. That Matt O'Connor is such a nice fella..

Look lads, a dive is jumping into the air and flapping to the ground dramatically. I doesn't matter if you're on your own or someone touches you right before you do it.... football players dive and few of them wait to be on their own doing it - ie, there is virtually always some contact. But everyone still knows they're looking at a dive.

Niko was fouled...he then dived.

Nope - he could not avoid going over. He did not dive. He was a bit theatrical with the fall but a much larger man tried to take his head off as he ran past him. No dive. Clear penalty. Its only a dive in the view of the one eyed. There was no way he could have stayed on his feet

How can some of us be one-eyed though?  I've said numerous times in numerous posts that he was fouled.  He didn't invent the contact.  It was contact off the ball and it deserved a card.  But being theatrical with a fall is a dive.  

It's semantics we're engaging in.  I go back to footballers - contact yes, trip yes - wildly over emphasising the power of the contact, falling to the ground and rolling and rolling and rolling............... that's a dive in my eyes.  It's a genuine trip but it's an absolute acting class after it.  And most people call such a performance 'diving'.

Look at his reaction to the crowd that 'theatrically' booed him when he came on.  Oh the cheeky grin on that lad's face was priceless .....  he knew exactly what they were getting at, he was anticipating it and he (and they) enjoyed the little bit of theatricality of his Boo cameo.

Semantics shemantics. ;-) I still say a dive is when there is no foul

TJ wrote:Semantics shemantics.  ;-)  I still say a dive is when there is no foul

There can be legal contact without a foul (rugby is a contact sport), and the player dives to convince the referee the contact was illegal.

I said foul not contact - no contact round a players neck is legal anyway

TJ wrote:Semantics shemantics.  ;-)  I still say a dive is when there is no foul

You mean like jumping into an opposing player to make it look like they tackled you in the air?

I agree with TJ here. I guess it is semantics, but for me a trip and subsequent flailing of arms is theatrics. But a dive is a fall to the floor with no actual trip, or no actual elbow to the chops, or pretending someone punched you in the belly! That's what the footballers have got down to a tee. But it is creeping into rugby.

ULSTER won it last season - http://www.uafc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17229

PenfroPete wrote:ULSTER won it last season - http://www.uafc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17229

Total turnaround in fortunes

It's so frustrating. And I think it's 90% just players having less confidence in the structures at the breakdown and doing stupid things as a result. Like McCloskeys red card. Dangerous play, deserved a red, but it all came out of poor coaching of that area. Not being coached in how to clear out a breakdown properly ends up in players doing things like this.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/guinness-pro12/vine-stuart-mccloskey-redcarded-but-gallant-ulster-hang-on-to-beat-edinburgh-31009681.html

I'm not saying that didn't deserve a red card at all, just that the coaching of how we approach the breakdown as a team isn't there so you get all kinds if stupid infringements. If the coaches have drilled ruck technique into him, he makes a better and much more legal contribution there. He doesn't know what he's meant to be doing when he's clearing that ruck. Not all the cards we've had have been like that, but I just don't know why the other forms of indiscipline have happened. We haven't traditionally been a dirty team, we've been up and around the top of the fair play league for a long stretch before this year, which makes it even harder to explain. We've just done so many things that you think are completely stupid and it's unbelievably frustrating.

Notch - I guess its from frustration and trying too hard. Edinburgh ain't a dirty team but gave away a lot of penalties this year and got a lot of cards. I think when things aren't going your way its too tempting to stray over the line / try one sneaky move too many / leave your hands on ther ball too long in a ruck etc etc

edit - looking at that link that red card appears to be frustration not any attempt to injure.

Three of Ulsters citings were also bs calls, Marshalls against Scarlets was one of the most ridiculous in history. Tagicakibau was hurt but to call it deliberate was a stretch, Wilsons in the same game was careless but nothing in comparison to a lot that goes on in the game and then O'Connors was a freak accident

marty2086 wrote:Three of Ulsters citings were also bs calls, Marshalls against Scarlets was one of the most ridiculous in history. Tagicakibau was hurt but to call it deliberate was a stretch, Wilsons in the same game was careless but nothing in comparison to a lot that goes on in the game and then O'Connors was a freak accident

The problem is once you have a few citings upheld the citing commissioners start looking at you much harder. Same thing for refs. And same for players when they get a reputation- would another player have been cited for what Hartley did for example? I think there's a decent chance that they wouldn't.

Of course the frustration of Luke Marshall getting cited for the very minimal and seemingly accidental contact made and then Jack McGrath and Yoaan Huget getting away with what they did altogether is the kind of thing that drives me up the wall

I don't agree with that. any player would be cited for a headbutt and I don't think refs look out for particular teams or players for foul play

Notch wrote:

marty2086 wrote:Three of Ulsters citings were also bs calls, Marshalls against Scarlets was one of the most ridiculous in history. Tagicakibau was hurt but to call it deliberate was a stretch, Wilsons in the same game was careless but nothing in comparison to a lot that goes on in the game and then O'Connors was a freak accident

The problem is once you have a few citings upheld the citing commissioners start looking at you much harder. Same thing for refs. And same for players when they get a reputation- would another player have been cited for what Hartley did for example? I think there's a decent chance that they wouldn't.

Of course the frustration of Luke Marshall getting cited for the very minimal and seemingly accidental contact made and then Jack McGrath and Yoaan Huget getting away with what they did altogether is the kind of thing that drives me up the wall

Not to mention the same weekend Ben Teo being told he had no case to answer for using a cast covered forearm on someone's face, the second time in a season

You can play this game about inconsistency with the panels all day to be fair, and it has ever been thus, but it's out of the teams control Ulster can't change the citing process, but we can do lots of things to tighten our discipline and the coaches must act. Late being better than never.

Notch wrote:You can play this game about inconsistency with the panels all day to be fair, and it has ever been thus, but it's out of the teams control Ulster can't change the citing process, but we can do lots of things to tighten our discipline and the coaches must act. Late being better than never.

What I was trying to highlight was that the table can show Ulster are a dirty team but luck, timing and opinion play a big role in that table

Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been. Barring Declan Fitzpatricks red card, that was the only incidence of violent/dirty play, not recklessness or stupidity.

If we're near the bottom again next season I will not be happy. There's a number of games we've lost or almost lost due solely to discipline and missing players have put unnecessary stress on the squad.

I hope in the grand scheme of things that this season will have been a blip. But I'm annoyed to see Doak only coming out and talking hard on discipline now. Could have told you it was a major problem in February.

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been

What about Nick Williams on Patchell, and didn't one of your players punch John Barcley at PYS during the season, I would say that there is a case for intentional dirty play.

LordDowlais wrote:

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been

What about Nick Williams on Patchell, and didn't one of your players punch John Barcley at PYS during the season, I would say that there is a case for intentional dirty play.

It was at Ravenhill, the TMO said that it was fine, then the player got cited and banned.

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been.

I agree - same as Edinburgh

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been

What about Nick Williams on Patchell, and didn't one of your players punch John Barcley at PYS during the season, I would say that there is a case for intentional dirty play.

It was at Ravenhill, the TMO said that it was fine, then the player got cited and banned.

Well it does not matter where it was, you cannot swing a punch at somebody and hit them by accident, I think Notch is looking at things through Ulster tinted specs, I have seen some nasty foul play by some Ulster players this season.

TJ wrote:

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been.

I agree - same as Edinburgh

I hadn't noticed how bad the stats were for Edinburgh, 19 yellows (the worst non Italian yellow count), but no reds. To be fair that seems more like fighting tooth and nail to remain in the game/retain a lead, as opposed to being a dirty side, dirty sides pick up reds and/or bans, which Edinburgh did not.

I'd be hopeful Ulster will be back up to the top of the Fairplay league next season, where we were for about the last three seasons. Whatever way Doak has been running discipline, it hasn't worked, whereas it did under McLaughlin and Anscombe.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

TJ wrote:

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been.

I agree - same as Edinburgh

I hadn't noticed how bad the stats were for Edinburgh, 19 yellows (the worst non Italian yellow count), but no reds.  To be fair that seems more like fighting tooth and nail to remain in the game/retain a lead, as opposed to being a dirty side, dirty sides pick up reds and/or bans, which Edinburgh did not.

Yep, I agree, having a yellow for holding on in the red zone, or collapsing too many scrums, or for taking one for too many infringements by the team is totally different to what Nick Williams did to Patchell, or what Gareth Davies did to the Edinburgh player, there is quite the difference.

LordDowlais wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

Notch wrote:Well discipline has clearly been a problem for us, but I don't think intentional dirty play has been

What about Nick Williams on Patchell, and didn't one of your players punch John Barcley at PYS during the season, I would say that there is a case for intentional dirty play.

It was at Ravenhill, the TMO said that it was fine, then the player got cited and banned.

Well it does not matter where it was,  you cannot swing a punch at somebody and hit them by accident, I think Notch is looking at things through Ulster tinted specs, I have seen some nasty foul play by some Ulster players this season.

No one can argue about Williams, if it wasn't Patchell it would have been someone else getting hurt so a ban was in the pipeline for him its just a shame someone had to be badly hurt for it to happen but the Wilson incident was not as bad as you make it sound, he made a play for the ball and timed it badly and caught Barclay

marty2086 wrote:he made a play for the ball and timed it badly and caught Barclay

He punched him.

How can that be an accident, if he hit him with an open hand I would have some sympathy, but it was a clenched fist to the face FFS.