You really don't think Barnes' supposed pedantry was at all a reason for both teams actually playing?
I think it was more the fact that said pedantry resulted in Ireland going 12 down, Ireland then knew they had to play rugby and score tries and Wales soon realised they'd lose the game if they failed to score. Both teams still slowed the ball down at times and Barnes began to allow it, Barnes is the worst ref in rugby for picking one aspect of a game that he's going to officiate extremely harshly. It's decided a lot of games before and was a factor yesterday, the fact that we're talking about Barnes so much shows he had a bad game in my opinion. It didn't effect the result, Wales were better on the day, but Barnes influenced the game and took a lot of attention away from the rugby.
As for Ireland, Joe Schmidt finally made a few mistakes! The biggest one being Johnny Sexton, he was at 60% at best and the game could have been won with Mads at 10. He also gave up the kicking game completely which led to the team not playing cohesive and accurate rugby like they had been in the 10 games previous. It was also pretty clear he didn't want to revert to the kicking game or have another way to beat Wales. A bit to be learned.
As for individual performances...
Best's throwing cost us big.
Murray was slow, ineffective around the fringes and looked like his pre-Lions self, not good.
Zebo was muck, had very few positive inputs to the game.
Sexton was most likely unfit so I'm reluctant to question what went wrong.
McGrath probably handed the 1 shirt back to Healy.
The second row was great and matched Wales which says a lot!
POM was poor by his standards and Henshaw looked out of position.
A great shot at the slam lost, next week should be seen as a RWC warm up rather than a championship chaser because 4 w's with a championship isn't any better than 4 without one in a World Cup year.
