I disagreed with the lack of penalty towards the end of the Wales for the head contact on Tompkins. You give that and even without it having to be a yellow card then itâs maybe enough for wales to hold on. But you cannot really feel that aggrieved by it because of the clarity of decision making and communication from the refs
Gutting defeat that ends a great Ireland team. Lots of talent in the pipeline, but there will be a changing of the guard before the next. As you say, just a few too many mistakes in the first half, and near-heroic defence from NZ in the second.
That wouldnât be hard, the bar is low. Try as he did, he couldnât hand Ireland enough of an advantage to get the win, even with 2 sin bins. That âdeliberate knock onâ yellow card was much like the Jones red card with VAR pretty much helping Barnes make up his mind.
That final passage of play went 37 phases. Thatâs nuts. Everyone dead on their feet at the end of it.
Accuracy again. Ireland had their opportunities but couldnât take them. The All Blackd however nailed every one of theirs.
100% agree with comments above on the refereeing. Iâm nearing the point where I canât watch football anymore because of the refereeing and associated attitude that comes with it from the PGMOL and the PL.
Both teams had all the confidence you could ask for, I think. Barrett doesnât get his knees under the ball, and I think Ireland wins that with a late penalty to add to the score. Small margins indeed. But I think the All Blacks had a bit more desperation to their defensive play, knowing they can and have lost to that Ireland side.
Itâs sadly true though. You put faith in the officials that they will officiate the game and not influence the result. At least in rugby you can see the thinking, the difficult choices and how decisions are brought about by consensus of a group that can use technology as a tool to help. The final decision lays with one person though. It just works.
With that and the game being what it is, it just feels honest to me.
Football howeverâŚ
And thatâs just the refereeing side. Letâs not get into the money and corruption side too.
Anyhow, still a bit numb after those games yesterday. Expecting more honest brutality today.