Rosbif says...

@safehands, sorry, just couldn't resist a last observation: you realise your description of "pulling a France" could easily be applied to SBW...

(I guess, in your world-view, any negative character traits must be the result of having spent a season at Toulon. After all, anyone who grew up in Mount Albert couldn't possibly be flawed)

Posted 18:38 07th August 2012

Rosbif says...

@safehands. No worries! It's your world-view, as you say. And interesting to see it so clearly stated, with no attempt to dilute it. Thank you.

My personal interest is in how people come to believe what they believe. Call it my weakness (or research field). Social scientists in the 1970s broadly outlined 2 aspects of human nature and the universal processes of cognition. 1st, people are generally rational, and their thinking is normally sound. 2nd, emotions such as affection, fear, and hatred explain most of the occasions on which people depart from rationality. And then, of course, there are the well documented "heuristic traps" of availability, pareidolia, texas sharpshooter, and so forth, which affect us all.

Might I suggest you read the article "Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. It's only 10 pages, but it's something of a classic in the field, having attracted comment in over 300 scholarly articles last year alone, despite having been written in the early 1970s. Oh, and it also won its co-authors the Nobel Prize!

Hand in hand, one cannot overlook the role of the media. People are known to mistake the relative importance of topics by the ease with which they can be retrieved from memory - which itself is mostly determined by the extent of coverage in the media. In turn, what the media choose to report corresponds to their view of what is currently in the public's mind. And public interest is most aroused by 1) dramatic events and/or 2) celebrities. Put both together and you have a perfect storm! Again, if you allow, there was a really short but interesting speech given by Noam Chomsky in 2003 at the 15th anniversary dinner in NYC of the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Society. It is transcribed as "Journalist from Mars". I fear we are all part of the "bewildered herd"

Happy reading :-)

Posted 10:04 07th August 2012

Ramage says...

There are a number of issues here. Lets look at them all.

Yes there were a number of off the ball incidents but these were not confined to the Chiefs. Sorry John you only saw what you wanted to see and come across as another whining kiwi.

However I too found it strange that Walsh did not penalise those infringing and asking Cruden to pass on a request to another team mate to stop infringing is bizarre. I too do not believe this is the way to manage a game. However the suggestion that he did not see the infringement by Tameifuna because he didnt want to is an indictment on that writer. I suppose that his assistants Craig Joubert and Keith Brown also decided not to flag the incident because they too decided they didn't want to.

Finally the travel I'm at a loss as to how this can be overcome this problem when our countries are so far away from each other. However the on way that it can be overcome is by finishing higher up the order. I did not hear John saying that his team's loss to the lowly Lions in the final series of games was one of the reasons he faced such travel.

However to be fair the fact the Reds were able to gain so much just by being a conference leader does need to be looked at. I totally agree with Fattysock that this rule shafted the Sharks and cause all this travel. Unless a conference leader earns the points they should not get a home play off. Once again O'Neill has shafted us all.

In the end there are a number of issues that can and should be sorted and the first is that of a conference winner getting a home play off despite where they end on the overall table, this year it was an OZ team but it should also apply equally if it is a kiwi or saffa team. Only Walsh can answer why he made some bizarre decisions no doubt his review will make him think about this in his future refereeing. John you do need to be more objective on the team transgressions.

Posted 12:39 06th August 2012

rugby_rockstar says...

Well done Cheifs, their season long game plan was executed well and they won well and deservedly. I totally agree that steve walsh was poor though and kiwi-centric. He's got an extreme veiw of how the game should be played and that makes him a terrible referee if you have two conflicting styles of play colliding on the pitch because the team who plays rugby the way he likes it played will always win. The biggest deal here is that Super Rugby appointed Walsh to ref a SA vs NZ match in the first place. Best referee they said, not in a million years, blatantly obivously NOT the best ref due to his narrow view and prejudices about how rugby union should be played. I also saw him turn a blind eye towards crooked feeding at the scrum and players diving off their feet to seal off ruck ball. the final was a mess from a refereeing point of view. yet more proof that matches are refereed according to the eccentricities of individual referees rather than a consistant world wide approach to the game and thats something the referees association and the IRB need to look at becasue they are failing to deliver fair games. Walsh should not have been appointed so I'm laying the blame at the door step of the tournament organsiers. It probably would have been a much more exciting game if neutrals felt that the Sharks had been given a fair crack at the whip. as it was I think the best team won but thanks to Walshes extreme and kiwi-centric interpretation of the laws the game was never allowed to become a sporting contest. we tuned in for that contest and what we got was a damp squib of a match. a pretty mediocre way to sign off on the 2012 super rugby season. As a neutral I can't see it living on in the memory for very long.

Posted 10:50 06th August 2012

Rosbif says...

@safehands. boy, you really can't help yourself can you? now we have to learn an entirely new lexicon. "Pulling off a France"... which in your psycho-babble means something about cheating/whinging/not being worthy, and is now a universal term that can be applied to any team (club/provincial/franchise/national) facing your beloved countrymen.

I guess "doing a New Zealand" means being rather spiffingly brilliant and dandy at everything you do?

(unless you're Plumtree, in which case, you're some kind of "Taranaki traitor"....)

urrrrgggghhhhh

Posted 09:55 06th August 2012

kitch says...

agree with plumtree... chiefs have done it all season and refs have only warned them rather than penalised them. While everyone knows the rules re the playoffs .. i agree a 2 week break between semi and final needs to be looked at.. but thats the prize for topping the table i guess

Posted 09:13 06th August 2012

rugbyphile says...

Chiefs were all over Sharks after the 1st 15 minutes and well deserved winners. That said, Plumtree's remarks are understandable-- while Chiefs were infringing -holding on to defenders etc Walsh was sporadically asking them please to stop doing it, at one stage even asked Cruden (who was not the captain) to ask his teammates not to infringe. When a player infringes the ref blows a penalty Steve, not only against one side. J du Plessis collected a stiff arm swing to the schnozz and was then penalised for pushing the culprit in the chest! Even the Kiwi commentators were puzzled. Walsh did not see the head -high swing at Kankowski?--chose not to see more like it. Lucky for Steve the last three quarters of the game was so one -sided or we might have seen some hard decisions having to be made.

Posted 07:21 06th August 2012

sandal says...

New Zealanders hate serial jersey-pullers, so I would be very disappointed if the Chiefs were doing it continually. But let's face it, all teams engage in such gamesmanship to a degree; we tend to notice it only when we're its victims. John Plumtree ought to know that any jersey-pulling didn't affect the game.

I am glad, however, that he has brought up the issue of travel. I remember his frequent and eloquent denunciations of what the Crusaders had to endure last season -- over to South Africa for a semifinal and back to Brisbane the following weekend. Oh, did nobody hear Plumtree on that occasion? Strange.

Seriously, if Plumtree wants to avoid the travel, he should get out of the Super XV, or ensure his team don't make the playoffs. Either that or come top.

Posted 06:58 06th August 2012

mixedup says...

There is vast difference between 'operating in the grey areas of the law' and deliberately and cynically operating in the black areas of the law in the hope that you won't be caught. Remember that in the modern game, the 'game managers' are the referee, the assistant-referees and the Captains. The players also need to take responsibility and manage themselves on the field.

Posted 05:57 06th August 2012

shano303 says...

Every team does it in every sport. All players can do is adapt to the referee. There were so few set pieces however it had very little bearing on the game and it's outcome.

Posted 22:09 05th August 2012