Rugby

[Carnage]

I've never seen a worse refereed match than the Ulster Connacht game this evening. At least 2 reds should have been given to Ulster players during the handbags section, instead it was an Ulster free and a Connacht yellow a few mins. after. Shameful.

[Anvil]

The hand bags was nothing.  Thought it was harsh on Hansen to be penalised for trying to protect his scrumhalf.  Dave McCann should have been the player to be penalised (perhaps with a yellow) for starting it by following through and pushing his forearm into Ben Murphy's face. 

The biggest miss was Heffernan's tackle on Henderson early in the first half, which was a head on head contact and resulted in Henderson failing a HIA.  Connacht should have played most of that game with 14 players.  I'd be very surprised if Heffernan doesn't get cited and get a 3 week ban for that.

[Carnage]

One player having his face ground into the pitch, then Hansen being swung around by the neck - both red card offences. Hansenwas being penalised all night by the ref, there must be a grudge there. The last Ulster try shouldn't have stood either, it came from an illegal throw in to the line out, the player being a foot or two onto the pitch. Appalling officiating all round.

[Anvil]

You'll be complaining about crooked put ins to the scrum next.  The ref wasn't the reason Connacht lost or Ulster won that game. 

[Carnage]

No, handling errors, missed kicks and the (deserved) red card cost them the game. But the fact remains that poor officiating worked to Ulster's benefit and Connacht's detriment on more than one occasion.

[John Kimble]

Poor showing there. Seemed briefly reinvigorated after half time and then quickly ran out of steam. We're better than that.

[Anvil]

Thought our defence was strong, but so many simple handling errors and stupid penalties.  Need to sort our lineout as well.

[Blizzard Beast]

Yeah we looked well off the pace, way too many pens and handling errors.

[Anvil]

Watched the England Australia and Italy Argentina games yesterday. Ireland still have to play both Australia and Argentina this month, and both teams looked very sharp in attack.  If we perform like we did against New Zealand against either, I could see us losing again. 

Actually both the matches today could be great, think Fiji will beat Wales and hope the SA forwards give Scotland a battering today. 

[Anvil]

Well we tried our best to lose that game.  More bad than good again this week.

[John Kimble]

Yep, another fairly toothless display there. Lots of errors again. Very hard to take any positives from the last two games.

[Carnage]

Poor. Handling all over the place as usual, I don't believe they deserved to win that match at all. What the fuck was Bealham doing with that roll?

[John Kimble]

Hard to complain about that result but still some very basic errors (forward passes FFS at this level). Despite the card from Prendergast, some positive stuff from the younger lads. 

[Carnage]

Aye, still fumbling the ball and losing lineouts too but three decent debuts (starts) there. Hansen seems to have his mojo back too, no harm at all.

[John Kimble]

Australia will be a much tougher prospect, I've no doubt the win against England has them on a bit of a high.