Aviva Premiership Final - Tigers vs Saints

[munstermuffin]

Well Barnes did say that if he wasn't 100% certain that Hartley directed it at him, he wouldn't have done anything about it - so its a question of his perception. Equally it appears Hartley didn't get any reduction in ban length because he didn't 'plead guilty'. So basically Hartley's offense was that the ref percieved he was insulted, and Hartley maintains he didn't insult him.

I dunno how you can say that verbal abuse of authority is more serious than violence, I and pretty much any rugby spectator and player would prefer to be sworn at/have someone swear at the ref than be spear tackled/punched in the face/stamped on. To say otherwise is both delusional and dangerous.

Ok sure well guess we can agree to disagree. And Hartley had a week shaved off of 12 weeks for good conduct. His defense was poor and he showed no remorse so why (when found guilty by disciplinary) should there be reduction

 

[dullonien]

On that basis Manu Tulagi would/should have been given a far greater ban, given that one video of him knocking Ashton about has about 2.75 million youtube views. Or Warburton for his spear tackle.

If kids are that impressionable, and we want to make the game better for everyone, it makes sense to paint violent, dangerous and malicious play as the worst thing one can do on a rugby pitch. One way to do this is to make sure bans for far less dangerous and damaging offenses don't outstrip those that are violent.

Yes, players are getting away for too leniently for some of the deliberate acts of foul play, although tip tackles are a little different because most are completely unintentional, and despite being dangerous deserve less of a sentence.

A lack of respect is one of the big issues in modern society, and I'm both delighted and proud that rugby upholds a level of respect, towards opposition player (before and after the game at least ), opposition fans, and towards the officials; that is sorely lacking in the rest of society. Take a look at the school of hard knocks series and see just what instilling a sense of mutual respect (as well as confidence) can do to really transform troubled young adults lives. Rugby sets a standard that all of society should follow, and hopefully it will influence some to follow their lead.

 

[Groundhog]

Well if a player plays badly their clubs don't play them!

It doesn't actually demand total respect for the referee, it demands a player not articulating their frustration towards the ref. No one actually respects a ref that makes bad calls. No one. I remember one England player in the 2003 world final going up to the ref and saying 'thanks for nothing', that isn't respect, thats learning how to say **** off with a smile... And that attitude is consistent throughout any sport tbh.

I think its totally myopic that you assume respect for the ref is the sole arbiter in the different levels of violence between sports - to me a far more plausible explanation is a class based one...

If I was in a final I wouldn't expect to get a red card if I muttered swear words to the ref (or if he thought I did). And I genuinely don't understand how anyone could think sending someone off for it would be a good thing.

Right, the difference is that Hartley didn't mutter anything. If it was picked up on TV he was quite loud. And a class based thing? Maybe in some areas, but I don't think there's a base for that claim when you look at some of the scumbags that we have playing. It's a tough game that will attract s few headbangers. The only reason they keep their temper in check is because they know how easily they can be banned. Here's a prime example of what happens when you go against that.
You don't have to like the ref, just stay within the rules, and don't mouth off. It's that simple mate.

 

[lynam1104]

lol. Now a 17 stone bloke punching someone as hard as they can is 'weak' and 'never life threatening'. Great! I'm sure every red blooded rugby player would take a punch like that from Tulagi just for lols! But we'd better all watch out for those moral evils of talking back to the ref, massive threat to the game they are!

I just wrote a paragraph explain my position but I honestly feel like it will be wasted on you, considering you are ignoring what I said in a post you quoted or just refusing to understand whats in front of you.

 

[smartcooky]

Disgusting. More than double what Manu got for smashing up Ashton in 2011. Says it all really...

Not disgusting and absolutely the the right call, but I'm not surprised at your reaction because you have an attitude problem, and you need to deal with it.

If you play the game, I sincerely hope that you don't carry that sort of attitude onto the field!

So you don't think young amateur players are influenced by the professional players they aspire to? If professional players are allowed to disrespect the ref, then how long until the amateur players do exactly the same.

That is EXACTLY how it works in football. Young kids see Premiership players abusing and swearing at match officials, and see that they get away with it and that there are no consequences for such behaviour, so they take it as an example that they can get away with it too

Seriously, you're attitude really does stink.

Seconded

 

[smartcooky]

The laws of the game appear to me very much skewed towards referees. I cant remember the last time a professional ref was banned for a long period of time for making wrong calls...

Obviously you are too young to remember Stuart Dickinson, who made a complete balls up of the scrums in a NZ v Italy match at San Siro a few years back, and as a result, lost his place on the iRB test panel, and never refereed a Six Nations or Tri Nations match again, after having been a regular in those matches for several years.

Then there is kiwi referee Bryce Lawrence, who made a total hash of the 2011 Australia v South Africa quarter final, was subsequently dropped from the iRB panel, and retired when he realised his time was up for international refereeing.

Referees are sanctioned when they have very bad games.

We might not like Barnes as a ref and many New Zealanders would agree that he is a cheat, but it doesn't give any player the right to challenge his authority on the field during play, that's just looking for trouble.

I don't want to make this about Wayne Barnes because I thought he was excellent in his match, and dealt with the difficult Hartley incident correctly and decisively.

However, you won't actually find many kiwis who think Barnes was a cheat in the 2007 quarterfinal. Most kiwis appear to be of the opinion that he was a young and inexperienced referee (only six international matches before the RWC, only two of them involving Tier 1 nations) who should never have been dumped in at the deep end the way he was. He was the RFU's refereeing Golden Boy at the time, and while he deserved to be at RWC, I think the iRB let him down by giving him a play-off match where the intensity was beyond anything in his previous experience. He was like a possum caught in the headlights that day, and just forgot to referee.

 

[Tony Manx]

Obviously you are too young to remember Stuart Dickinson, who made a complete balls up of the scrums in a NZ v Italy match at San Siro a few years back, and as a result, lost his place on the iRB test panel, and never refereed a Six Nations or Tri Nations match again, after having been a regular in those matches for several years.

Then there is kiwi referee Bryce Lawrence, who made a total hash of the 2011 Australia v South Africa quarter final, was subsequently dropped from the iRB panel, and retired when he realised his time was up for international refereeing.

Referees are sanctioned when they have very bad games.



I don't want to make this about Wayne Barnes because I thought he was excellent in his match, and dealt with the difficult Hartley incident correctly and decisively.

However, you won't actually find many kiwis who think Barnes was a cheat in the 2007 quarterfinal. Most kiwis appear to be of the opinion that he was a young and inexperienced referee (only six international matches before the RWC, only two of them involving Tier 1 nations) who should never have been dumped in at the deep end the way he was. He was the RFU's refereeing Golden Boy at the time, and while he deserved to be at RWC, I think the iRB let him down by giving him a play-off match where the intensity was beyond anything in his previous experience. He was like a possum caught in the headlights that day, and just forgot to referee.

+1

 

[TRF_heineken]

Obviously you are too young to remember Stuart Dickinson, who made a complete balls up of the scrums in a NZ v Italy match at San Siro a few years back, and as a result, lost his place on the iRB test panel, and never refereed a Six Nations or Tri Nations match again, after having been a regular in those matches for several years.

Then there is kiwi referee Bryce Lawrence, who made a total hash of the 2011 Australia v South Africa quarter final, was subsequently dropped from the iRB panel, and retired when he realised his time was up for international refereeing.

Referees are sanctioned when they have very bad games.

I don't want to make this about Wayne Barnes because I thought he was excellent in his match, and dealt with the difficult Hartley incident correctly and decisively.

However, you won't actually find many kiwis who think Barnes was a cheat in the 2007 quarterfinal. Most kiwis appear to be of the opinion that he was a young and inexperienced referee (only six international matches before the RWC, only two of them involving Tier 1 nations) who should never have been dumped in at the deep end the way he was. He was the RFU's refereeing Golden Boy at the time, and while he deserved to be at RWC, I think the iRB let him down by giving him a play-off match where the intensity was beyond anything in his previous experience. He was like a possum caught in the headlights that day, and just forgot to referee.

No I agree with you Cooky, his inexperience was the cause for his blunders, yet there was an outcry that he "cheated", even if it was by a few people. I also don't want to make it a Barnes thing as he has had his moments of good and bad calls. (Which ref hasn't)?

Every ref goes through a slump just like players do, yet they get treated worse than the players, because they don't have a fanbase, are percieved as biased if they treat a team wrongly which isn't the case, and most of all because the players, coaches, journalists and management all have it in for them.

I have massive respect for the refs, and every time a ref appears on a rugby show/programme, it just increases, the amount of time and effort they put in to make sure they look at every detail to ensure the correct calls are made, even if it is very technical, with mere hundreds of a second to make that call, takes a lot of guts, determination and clear headedness.

Its thugs like Hartley that brings the game into disrepute, not Barnes. I was one of the frontrunners to complain about Bryce Lawrence, but his incedents grew, and what frustrated me was that there was no action taken, and it developed into a ticking time bomb. As for Barnes, I see him in the same light as Steve Walsh and Jaco Peyper. Guys that love their job, has had some tough calls and bad days at the office, yet they bounce back and provide better rugby spectacles on a weekly basis.

As for guys on this forum, who don't seem to comprehend the bigger picture of the Gentlemanly manner in which players, referees and coaches intertwine with one another, here's a suggestion. Go to your local stadium or airport, usually a ref will travel with a team to an upcoming game or from one. Those guys are friendly towards one another, they are decent. You don't see a ref calling a player a cheating little *******. That's the job of the citing comissions who judge on the referees calls and the player's actions.

And the comission agreed with Barnes's call and not with Hartley's defence! Hartley has the right to appeal, just like any other court proceeding if he feels the decision was incorrect, so if he feels hard done by, he should appeal and let the judicial officer take it further.

I really don't understand why some guys can't grasp this process...

 

[Patchey]

lol. Now a 17 stone bloke punching someone as hard as they can is 'weak' and 'never life threatening'. Great! I'm sure every red blooded rugby player would take a punch like that from Tulagi just for lols! But we'd better all watch out for those moral evils of talking back to the ref, massive threat to the game they are!

Rugby is arguably the most physical team sport in the world. Any senior rugby player will be able to tell you of times when he or she have been subject to some form of physical foul play and probably give some examples of when they've given as good as they've got. However I can very rarely think of games when such incidents leave the field of play. Punches happen when you put thirty highly competitive sportspeople on a pitch and let them run at each other for over an hour yet, unless something incredibly nasty happens everyone invariably ends up in the same bar with no hard feelings either way.

However, mainly because rugby is such a physical sport it is vital that the word of the referee is final. If the ref isn't respected and obeyed then rugby become a dangerous and pretty unattractive sport. For this reason, disregarding the issues of sportsmanship and behaving like a gentleman for the moment, offenses involving disrespect to officials are punished so highly in rugby. I honestly can't fathom why anyone would want the laws another way.

 

[smartcooky]

I've been hearing from some people (referees) who were at the game and were listening on "Reflink".

One of them said that Hartley was chipping Barnes much of the time, was shocked at the way he was talking to Barnes, and seemed to bring a real attitude into the game right from the very start. He was surprised that it took Barnes so long to pull out the red card.

I think with evidence like this, and the fact that the Judiciary would have none of Hartley's excuses, pretty much tells us that the red card was not an OTT reaction by Wayne Barnes, but was the culmination of a persistent stream of abuse that Hartley was warned about several times, and which was only going to be ended by his dismissal from the game.

 

[LittleGuy]

I've been hearing from some people (referees) who were at the game and were listening on "Reflink".

One of them said that Hartley was chipping Barnes much of the time, was shocked at the way he was talking to Barnes, and seemed to bring a real attitude into the game right from the very start. He was surprised that it took Barnes so long to pull out the red card.

I think with evidence like this, and the fact that the Judiciary would have none of Hartley's excuses, pretty much tells us that the red card was not an OTT reaction by Wayne Barnes, but was the culmination of a persistent stream of abuse that Hartley was warned about several times, and which was only going to be ended by his dismissal from the game.

Do you think he should have gone for a yellow earlier in the match smartcooky? This might have put a stop to things early on and still would have been punishment for both Hartley and Northampton. I don't think the red is wrong myself but perhaps some quicker action would have snapped Hartley into his senses(without all the ensuing discussion about a red) or if Hartley continued after the first yellow no one on the planet could argue with a red..

 

[smartcooky]

Do you think he should have gone for a yellow earlier in the match smartcooky? This might have put a stop to things early on and still would have been punishment for both Hartley and Northampton. I don't think the red is wrong myself but perhaps some quicker action would have snapped Hartley into his senses(without all the ensuing discussion about a red) or if Hartley continued after the first yellow no one on the planet could argue with a red..

Its a tough one. It not like a single incident; a dangerous head high or no arms tackle where you can see it and "bang" you realise its a yellow card. Its like a trigger point is reached. Former top level English referee Fred Howard was once asked about this judgment of dismissing a player. His reply was something like "when you find your finger pointing to the dressing room, you know its a sending off!"

I think in this case, Hartley never really did enough to warrant a yellow card, until he pulled out the "Fvcking Cheat" outburst, and that was beyond yellow card level.

The nearest I can equate it to is a player who makes a marginally high tackle, which you penalise, and a few minutes later, he makes another one, which you penalise and issue a warning about keeping the tackles lower. Neither of the tackles was worth a yellow card, but twenty minutes later, he executes a dreadful head high, late swinging arm that takes the opponent clean off his feet and crashing onto his back. You're not gong to pull out the yellow one for that, you're going to pull the red one, because it deserved it on its own, regardless of what went on before.

 

[Taylo2]

I think SmartCooky has summed all the events up pretty well.

The only one I may disagree about is Lawes' first tackle, I felt a penalty was right. At the time I was adamant it was a yellow offence, seeing as Floody was out cold, but on review, you could clearly see it was Cole's stray knee that caused the concussion. So due to the lateness of the tackle, a penalty was the most it warranted, and got. The second tackle was spot on, great technique and timing.

Hartley got Hartley sent off, he had been warned enough times about his behaviour/language. Even if he was directing the abuse at Youngs, he certainly wasn't looking at him, appearing to look towards Barnes, which you can see why Barnes took it as being aimed at him. Foolish of Hartley to make such a remark, in such a manner, after being warned. He must be feeling pretty sh!tty right now, which hopefully will stop him doing it to himself again.

Foden had an awesome game, the sooner he is wearing the England shirt again the better.

Looking forward to the Lions now that the premiership is done, just hope everyone makes it through unscathed, especially Crofty, hes getting married soon lol

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Question: Which numbskull thought Hartley would be a good captain?

 

[ratsapprentice]

Question: Which numbskull thought Hartley would be a good captain?

Mallinder I believe.
He's been captain for a couple of years now, and it's seen by many as a very shrewd move...
The idea being that if you give him enough responsibility he won't be as liable to disciplinary problems, and for the most part it has worked.
It's obvious that Dylan is quite clearly too volatile for his own good, no matter what you do (Saints have been quite active in trying to sort his issues afaik).

 

[Twebby]

Has the report from the disciplinary been published yet?

There must have been evidence more conclusive than 'because Wayne says so' for an 11 week ban to be handed out.

 

[nickdnz]

I always wonder what players try to achieve when they do stuff like that. There are times when the referee is pinging you incorrectly and your initial reply is "Oh come on!" or something like that - but it doesn't take a genius to work out that being as respectful as possible to the referee helps your cause more than slagging him off. Nothing more frustrating than playing on a team with a captain who is too stupid to realize when he should keep his mouth shut.

 

[smartcooky]

Has the report from the disciplinary been published yet?

There must have been evidence more conclusive than 'because Wayne says so' for an 11 week ban to be handed out.

I'm still waiting for the pdf

 

[racingmetrofan]

Not disgusting and absolutely the the right call, but I'm not surprised at your reaction because you have an attitude problem, and you need to deal with it.

If you play the game, I sincerely hope that you don't carry that sort of attitude onto the field!

But I wouldn't, because I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL PLAYER.

Its just silly and misleading to call it an attitude problem. Unfortunately for Hartley, he falls into the gap (that is sporting and societal wide) where his behavior is considered 'bad', but not bad enough to have a legitimate problem. And most people are happy enough to shoot people down in that position, despite ignoring or being wholly sympathetic to people who commit far worse offenses (and there are plenty in rugby).

 

[j'nuh]

Its just silly and misleading to call it an attitude problem. Unfortunately for Hartley, he falls into the gap (that is sporting and societal wide) where his behavior is considered 'bad', but not bad enough to have a legitimate problem. And most people are happy enough to shoot people down in that position, despite ignoring or being wholly sympathetic to people who commit far worse offenses (and there are plenty in rugby).

Hartley's had bans for eye gouging, biting and should have had one for forearm dropping on McCaw. There are few offences left in rugby more extreme than these...

The fact that all this has happened and most would say that he's grown up, that he's a good captain, that he was a decent shout to captain England etc., shows a lot of sympathy from most of the public. Hartley could not complain about not getting a second/third/fourth chance. And I don't necessarily think he's a thug like he used to be, because at least this offence wasn't a violent one, but he deserves the punishment because he messed up. It's that simple.