Conjure shop12/16/2023 I think, across the games, there was a good standard of officiating which is encouraging to see with the rest of the tournament ahead of us. There are always a few talking points following a match and Saturday was no different: Was it a fair contest in the air when James Ryan stole the ball, was Liam Williams lucky not to get a red card for that challenge or was a yellow too harsh? But nobody is really talking about those decisions now and as a referee, that’s what you want. That is not to take anything away from the referees, however, and I thought Karl Dickson had a good game. Once you get past the 22ish mark, that’s a lot of penalties and it can really affect the flow of the game, especially it you think how much time a penalty takes, especially for kick at goal and how much playing time is lost from that. Now the last thing I want to start doing is comparing my refereeing to now, but when I was officiating my average penalty count for both sides in a game was probably between 16 and 18. ![]() Both Wales and Ireland were in the double figures by the end of the game. That will be difficult, because for whatever reason at the moment, if you look at the penalty counts in many of the games they’re in the mid to high 20s. If you look back at those All Blacks games, you’ll see they give away a lot of penalties, but they are so good and so clinical once they get inside the opposition 22 that they can afford to give them away and still go on to win the game.īut Wales, like lots of other teams, are not in that position at all, so improving their discipline is key and they simply need to cut down on the amount of penalties they are giving away. They play a similar game to what New Zealand have done. Ireland also reached a double-figure penalty count and will no doubt be disappointed with that, but they have the strength to back it up. When you’re in that position, it won’t make a difference but you still run the risk of being penalised for it, which is exactly what happened. Looking back, you could probably scrub at least four or five off our count that just were just completely unnecessary, like trying to steal an inch on the offside line in the middle of the pitch. There were a few really silly ones among those penalties too, ones that simply didn’t need to be given away. That ill-discipline allowed the visitors to take complete control of the game and we never looked like winning it from then on. 15 penalties were given away against Ireland, with eight of them coming in the opening 25 minutes or so. What Gatland really needs to sort out, however, is his side’s discipline. Morgan was actually very unlucky not to score a try himself, and Wales’ afternoon could have been very different with a little bit of luck, but it wasn’t to be. He showed some real glimpses of talent on his Six Nations debut and it seems like he will be an important figure for Wales in the future. I thought Jac Morgan played well again, as did Joe Hawkins in the centre. Read more: Wales and Pontypool front row rugby legend Charlie Faulkner dies aged 81 ![]() We were well beaten in the end, of course, with Ireland scoring three tries in the first 20 minutes to take control of the game, but that is not to say that Wales’ opening game was a complete disaster. ![]() It was always going to be a big ask, but with such a buzz around Warren Gatland’s return and with some new faces in the squad alongside the older heads, I honestly thought we could do it. Going into this Six Nations, I thought there was always a chance, albeit a fairly slim one, that we could catch out Ireland, the world‘s top-ranked side, on the first weekend and beat them.
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