6 NATIONS - WALES V ITALY - 11/03/18

First topic message reminder :

WALES V ITALY

Venue: Principality Stadium, Cardiff Date: Sunday, 11 March Kick-off: 15:00 GMT

Coverage: Live on BBC One Wales & S4C, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru & BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app, plus live text commentary.

Wales: L Williams, North, Watkin, Parkes, S Evans; Anscombe, G Davies; Smith, Dee, Francis, Hill, B Davies, Tipuric, J Davies, Faletau (capt).

Replacements: Owens, R Evans, Lee, S Davies, Jenkins, A Davies, Patchell, Halfpenny.

10 changes! really?

According to one of the lads on the France vs England thread, the rules have changed and now you can have a line out once you have been awarded a penalty after the 80 minutes is up.

Good news that it will stop the type of ridiculous refereeing we saw in Rom in 2007

https://youtu.be/l9qtmVbIhjY

maestegmafia wrote:According to one of the lads on the France vs England thread, the rules have changed and now you can have a line out once you have been awarded a penalty after the 80 minutes is up.

Good news that it will stop the type of ridiculous refereeing we saw in Rom in 2007

https://youtu.be/l9qtmVbIhjY

Where have you been Maesteg, that change has been in for over a season now. Def last 6 Nations (I think). Makes perfect sense really. A penalty doesn’t stop a game, so why should a pen kick for a line out stop a game, as the penalty isn’t complete until the lineout is taken.

Never made sense before really...

Best of luck today Welsh fans, a nice TBP win will put ye in a good position to finish second.

Mams v Mammas on bbc2W now.

Yes, a nice touch that having the women play before the men's game in a double header. And on Mother's Day too! Hope they don't ruin the pitch!

The Oracle wrote:Yes, a nice touch that having the women play before the men's game in a double header. And on Mother's Day too! Hope they don't ruin the pitch!

I would like to see this happening more and more. Women's 6N matches as a prelude to the men's matches. It would bring in more crowds and generate more interest in Women's rugby.

The only problem with it is who televises them? When the games are on different days or quite different times then at least the thing is broken up and channels don't mind televising games. But if all Women's games were on just before the male equivalent well that would be complicated as 6N channels like to show back to back men's games (ie, showing the Ireland v Scotland game then straight over for the intros and chats about France v England.)

Well Fly, the BBC website streams a lot of the games, even streaming the Ireland - Scotland women's match now.

All I am suggesting is that it would be nice to see the women play as prelude to the men's matches. Crowds will come in earlier to watch as well I feel.

Just read that James Davies has the best breakdown stats in Europe over his career so far. Only Stefan Armitage has won more turnovers. Looking forward to seeing if he can make the step up to international level. And with Tipuric on the pitch too the breakdown could be interesting. Light weight and mobile vs brute force (perhaps Wales’ approach in the past) is an interesting discussion. Hoping it goes the same way as it did for Scotland v England where the much more mobile back row was quicker to the breakdown and able to turn over ball and set up counter attacks galore.

Well that's Wales underway early, try in 4 minutes. Italy will get crunched today.

Second try for Wales after 5mins...

Game over already.

Could get very ugly if Wales fancy racking up the points.

Frantic start, now Italy score...

Bit like a Sevens game so far..

Seen 5 seatbelt tackles like Watson’s yesterday and not one penalty or yellow card! Where is the consistency?

Ah the classic 'ask the TMO', where the referee actually makes the decision.

I'll tell you what I've seen, indeed.

"just watch him.... yeah...it's a penalty"

Good one Jiffy.

Duty281 wrote:Ah the classic 'ask the TMO', where the referee actually makes the decision.

I'll tell you what I've seen, indeed.

That's all it ever should be. The ref asks a Video guy to show him the footage he needs and he still makes the decision. "Show me the footage" should be all a ref asks of TMO

Say goodnight Allen, what a hit from Faletau.

Good stuff there...the wink

Who do Italy think they are... take your 3 points away from home. Disgraceful decision making.

Yellow coming for Wales?

SecretFly wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Ah the classic 'ask the TMO', where the referee actually makes the decision.

I'll tell you what I've seen, indeed.

That's all it ever should be.  The ref asks a Video guy to show him the footage he needs and he still makes the decision.  "Show me the footage" should be all a ref asks of TMO

Precisely. There should be no TMO with decision-making power: it should solely be the remit of the referee.

Italy have come back into this match quite well, I honestly thought Wales would blow them away.

eirebilly wrote:Italy have come back into this match quite well, I honestly thought Wales would blow them away.

Ditto!

eirebilly wrote:Italy have come back into this match quite well, I honestly thought Wales would blow them away.

Italy don't look threateningat all though. I'd still expect Wales to put the foot down in the second half.

LeinsterFan4life wrote:

eirebilly wrote:Italy have come back into this match quite well, I honestly thought Wales would blow them away.

Italy don't look threateningat all though. I'd still expect Wales to put the foot down in the second half.

y have had a couple of moments but certainly do not look like they could be clinical.

Very lucky there as well, Italy could have seen a YC.

Liam Williams a little naughty there too.

Well that's gone Italy's way. They should have been down to 14 a few minutes ago.

Strange half.

Wales have the tools to stretch this but choose to play a pretty conservative game. Italy are keeping possession easily enough which is the surprise.

Wales have looked fairly threatening every time they have had the ball. Just not had enough of it! 39% possession at home vs Italy is bad. Comes down to the penalty count and unforced errors.

And Liam Williams, braindead.

To be fair with 10 changes it's bound to take Wales a while to get into their stride but I wouldn't be surprised to see them let rip in the last quarter ...

Duty281 wrote:Well that's gone Italy's way. They should have been down to 14 a few minutes ago.

I cannot see why he did not get a YC myself, it was very blatant...

Yes he was very lucky to stay on

No9 wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:According to one of the lads on the France vs England thread, the rules have changed and now you can have a line out once you have been awarded a penalty after the 80 minutes is up.

Good news that it will stop the type of ridiculous refereeing we saw in Rom in 2007

https://youtu.be/l9qtmVbIhjY

Where have you been Maesteg, that change has been in for over a season now. Def last 6 Nations (I think). Makes perfect sense really. A penalty doesn’t stop a game, so why should a pen kick for a line out stop a game, as the penalty isn’t complete until the lineout is taken.

Never made sense before really...

July 2017

Should have been a straight red, crazy rule but players have walked for the same thing this year.

TightHEAD wrote:Should have been a straight red, crazy rule but players have walked for the same thing this year.

Like Watson yesterday?
To be honest I disagree that either warranted anymore than a yellow.

Yes it was the end of last season - someone should have told the ref in the Wasps v Connaught match as he allowed Connaught to take the line-out after they kicked the ball out after time was up and score a try to deny Wasps a home quarter-final in the Euro cup ...

TightHEAD wrote:Should have been a straight red, crazy rule but players have walked for the same thing this year.

Straight red? That would have been very harsh. For me it was a penalty and a YC at a stretch.

Watson didn't make shoulder contact with the head ...

It was after the whistle had gone as well was Williams' hit. He'll presumably say he didn't hear it, but nothing good was coming to come of putting a hit like that in when Wales already had the penalty.

That's that then ... although I'm not convinced there wasn't a knock-on from the earlier up and under ...

Jaysus, Poite really does stand in the most awkward positions when teams are on the attack.

And that's the problem with Italy - can't keep their composure when they have an advantage

Liam Williams wasn’t happy was he!

Gats knew he should have gone

Elliott Dee having a good game so far. Defended well, and has been putting himself about in attack.

As good as Parisse is, he really is a mé feiner and often gets turned over.

Come one. We need that 4th try for the BP!

P.s. what a boring game!

The Oracle wrote:Come one. We need that 4th try for the BP!

It's only a matter of time ...

Heaf wrote:

The Oracle wrote:Come one. We need that 4th try for the BP!

It's only a matter of time ...

Unless we try too hard!