jacque fourie is a monster there's no way there that o'gara would have slammed him into touch, they couldnt do it from 3 inches away from the touchline never mind 2 yards, he needed to stay on his feet and hold him up

I strongly disagree. he has a fraction of the chance of stoping the guy if he is trying to stay on his feet, compared to spearing him from the side. fourie would have swatted him off every single time if he tried to stay on his feet. the only reason he was actually able to walk through the attempted tackle was that it was only a token effort of a tackle, when he needed to put every ounce of his being into smashing the guy. had he done so, I have little doubt he would have taken him into touch. I am equally sure that if he had tried to stay on his feet, then the effect would have been identical to what actually happened.

....and as I said before, even after the missed tackle, Phillips took the wrong option and should have just dragged his foot into touch.

just putting that into a sort of equation type thing.

if man A is running sideon into man B who is running forwards, then irrespective of the size and strength of the two men, man A has a better chance of stopping man B by running full pelt into his side, than he does by stopping, standing in front of man B and trying to stop man B.

Man A has the relevant momentum when he is running side on into him, so why hand the momentum to man B by stopping and taking him on head on ?

fourie would just have handed him off if he'd gone in at the side

how is it that while he is effectively standing still he can hand off a man who is throwing himself at him, but he can't hand off a man who is standing still that he is running straight at ? it's ridiculous.

because when youre in at the side after youve been handed off there's no where to go, when youre in front of someone you can still slow them down, giving enough time for support to arrive

but there is no 'because', because it wouldn't happen.

if the guy throws himself in from the side, then the chances are he's going to take the guy out. if the guy does get a hand off in then he will have to concentrate on the hand off, giving the other defenders chance to smash him into touch themselves. you cant hand everyone off at the same time.

if ogara stops and stands in front of him then the guy would just go straight through him. it wouldn't slow him down, it would just act as a shield from the man on the line.

besides which, by the tim he had got into a position to try to 'slow his momentum', he'd be pretty much at the line anyway.

I am definitely right about this. trying to slow him down is not an option.

I am definitely right about this.

the evidence is in the clip mate. he does stop his own momentum and try to take the player on head on, and he just gets marmalised. he should have accelerated into him, not stopped in front of him.

Its not worth the time Mex, instead just try to soak in the flood of knowledge

it's not even a flood of knowledge though aristo. it's the basics of the game, and common sense, and the evidence of what's before your eyes.

I have contradicted myself a couple of times on this matter, but the basics of what im saying are right.

where ogara went wrong is by doing exactly what you said he should have done - ie lose his momentum, take the man head on, and go high to try to slow him down. as we can see from the clip, he had no chance of succeeding in that.

his options were :

1. accelerate into the side of the guy's body and smash him into touch

2. accelerate into him and take his legs from the side (avoids the chance of a hand off)

3. (and it's not really an option) stand in front of him and try to take his legs.

a fly half trying to hold up a big guy like that who is charging at the line 5 yards out, will never ever work.

I am admittedly making some assumptions as to exactly what your proposal for slowing his momentum was, but I cant think what else you had in mind.

anyway, it was a good shout about it being a ROG balls up, although as I say imo, he's only part culpable for that one.

I may be missing something, but I haven't seen many comments on the Parisse situation. 4 weeks for swearing at the ref and Healy gets 3 weeks for trying to break someones leg.

Mental. Anyone think they have been lenient so he can still get in the Lions side?

i suppose its good in one way and bad in another MD, its shows that the ref is there to be respected but 3 weeks for healy is a disgrace, should have been 8 weeks at the very least IMO

im not trying to be deliberately argumentative here, but im not totally sure I agree with that one.

so far as I know the tribunal didn't find that healy was attempting to break the player's leg. im sure that if they had done, it would have been a much much longer ban.

regarding swearing at the ref, imo it is important that referees are continued to be given protection and respect. it was so noticeable even at the weekend when the ref called a player up and just said "im going to talk, not you" and he just shut it, how much better rugby is than football in that regard. it is vital in a game of rugby that the ref is respected imo, and I would not object to significant bans where some sort of abuse has been directed towards the red.

so far as I know the tribunal didn't find that healy was attempting to break the player's leg.

===========================================

well then what was he trying to do by putting his full force into a stamp on the ankle

what did the tribunal find then ? did it conclude that he was trying to break his ankle ?

obviously not, but it doesnt take a genius to know what he was trying to do

look, it's a very very bad offence that imo, notwithstanding that the England player should have rolled out of the way. I don't think though that he did it to try to break the player's leg, even though it could have had that result. to me he's saying "next time you might remember to get out of the fakin way you English ".

ok, so maybe 3 weeks isn't enough for that offence there when you compare it to other bans, but I don't agree that his intention was to break the player's leg.

probably not but he wasnt certainly trying to do him some damage

you will notice im not here defending my player. Healy was out of order. the ban was handed down by the system not his fault he received a lenient ban. He wasn't trying to break anyone's leg of course it could have happened and that not cool so what ever ban he should or could have gotten i would have agreed with. this can't be defended in my honest opinion so i wont. but again. the system doled out the ban so its a little one eyed to blame him for the number of weeks he was banned. clearly the system failed. another couple of weeks was in order if im honest. but such is life.

On Sergio's ban. 4 weeks seems fine to me. Don't care who you are in the world game. None of that football mentality and disrespect can be tolerated in rugby. It never has been and lets try to keep it that way. Also dont forget that the refs wear microphones and we can hear them on our sofas 2000 miles away, and we can hear the abuse, of which i would like to point out was a little on the heavy side. Sergio was not exactly having a laugh. it was not merely swearing at the ref, he was abusing him and the world could hear it. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I nearly, nearly swore at a ref on Saturday. He pinged me for hands in the ruck even though I was first there and stole it legit. I reacted badly and he called me over. Thought it was yellow card time but got away with a sorry sir. He was wrong though!

On topic Parisse should know better, 4 weeks is fine. Healy's ban should have been for the rest of the 6 Nations but otherwise its about right.

Healy has even been allowed to play France, poor decision imo.
As for you comments on Sergio Ding, I agree.

what did sergio actually say?