In reply to Dr.S at work:
I haven’t suggested any Ref was crooked. Although this could be an inference you choose to make or a perception of a watching audience when they witness more recent games and since the general acceptance of TMO, Video playback etc. Although WB is consistently bad; lousy. What I’m suggesting is that for large parts of the most major games the scale and usage of the TMO has changed in the ‘ big games’ and Finals. Whereby the viewing audience cannot receive TMO feedback fully or in part, the recognition that the ref has a drip feed of ear worm info, the refs ‘eye sight’ being made even more foggy than their spectacles informing them/forcing them to address issues/ignoring others, this having a crucial impact on the way the game plays out, that it appears refs decision but it could be a supportive alliance to the referee that is dominant in the background which is not infallible. However, when we see refs with a preconceived narrative on players/styles of play and managing them through infringement/guidance/ retribution for example for some reason this has always favoured rugby hegemonic nations ie NZ as an example as being aware and playing the ‘correct ‘ rules but now
( thus comment above ignoring the headshots stuff, that’s a different thing)
in six nations as well; it wouldn’t be a leap of the intellect to think that there is a hierarchy in rugby, required and maintained in close association,
of by a ‘board’ or that of a ‘union’ to require its members to entertain in the ‘correct’ way and that there is therefore a good selection of ‘outcomes’
to fulfill the groupings of a WR cup finals rankings etc. Or stop the erosion of support/bolster underperforming teams ( Scotland now, SA japan) Or other associated narrative.
Nigel Owens alluded to pre conceived judgements on players/play and awareness of ‘ what they do’ in a game, such things in refereeing intervention when reviewing footage of the ‘critically wrong’ refereeing decisions that cost Wales the Grand Slam, not so long ago, doubtless not going as far as other viewing public’s perceptions could
but if one innocent viewer could look at a game, identify the differences in TMO interactions in audible TMO ( turned off in high profile matches) as a potential to bring disrepute on the game as being rigged someway , even though that’s a huge call, then there is more obvious problem
and viewers will turn off believing it’s rigged in the future In fact the point I made about England ( eg in scrum Japan ) was that they were put under huge pressure by Quiet/silent TMO direction to ref and thus was blatantly wrong this appeared to give SA ascendancy in the scrum which was not the case, but hey why spoil a good longer term story I’m guessing this must have been identified as to changes around ‘ use it’ command
And a problem recognised by some nations as the lack of countdown at the ‘ use it ‘ call to the scrum half at five seconds has been to stop the ‘timing issues’ that could impart unfair competition for the ball and what England experienced in Japan WC final that exasperated their play and did lead to errors or facilitated SA rampage/dominance , nonsense.
this was as a consequence as they were continuously given 2 metres front foot attack choreographed timed play at scrum half of breakdown if you watch it again sometime and could only have been identified by officials prior to game or TMO in game
your YouTube pundit took the reffing as a ‘given/constant’ assuming accurate enforcement or fairness and did not reference its significance to an outcome in any detail, unfortunately for Wales, they have been on the receiving end of this in many high status/tournament games and the phasing out of TMO voice throughout the game is unsatisfactory as it cannot be questioned
and needs to be
Post edited at 08:02