Round XII Match Officials & Team News

Mond 16 YC 15 20 to go

Rugby can be a ruthless game. Very welcome 5 points for Jersey but the game was very much closer than the score line suggests and very harsh on Blues to take no points out of that game - they were far better than that. Two excellent defences and the forward packs closely matched but Jersey took their chances and always looked to attack when the chances came along so lets hope for the same effort and application in Reading next week.

Cov 18-17 CP (79 mins)

Edited by Kimbo - 19 Jan 2019 at 16:50

FT at Vallis Way
Ealing 34-26 Scottish
Ealing with all the possession, Scottish with all the flair. The Scottish midfield ran through Ealing at Will for a well deserved bonus point. Ealing’s big ball carriers made enough dents in the Scottish defence to ensure the result.

Best game at Vallis Way all season.

Donnyknightsfan wrote: The Blues wrote: FT Hartpury (1) 7 - 14 (4) Knights something has gone wrong here with this scoreline. according to Donny twitter it is 48-21 to the Knights with time nearly up.

 

Stalwart wrote: Very poor quality game at Cov. Difficult conditions, slippery pitch and wet ball. Cov probably just deserved it, but Pirates threw away a winning position with poor discipline and two yellow cards in the last 25 minutes. Pirates have gone backwards since the good cup win over Irish and a decent performance against Scottish. We missed the influential Cargill at 10 today.

Very lucky it was only two yellows, when the player receiving the second one didn’t leave the pitch, but argued with the referee, and continued shouting at him from the touch line.

Also a dreadful bit of bad sportsmanship at the end of the first half. A Coventry maul inside the Pirates’ 5m line was split into two pods by the Pirates’s defence, and the outer pod was dragged down over the touch line. Immediately one of the Purates players shouted ‘in touch’ at the touch judge - who flagged it and called it in. The referee blew for a Pirates line out - leaving the pod that were carrying the ball, and the defenders who were trying to stop them totally bemused, as they were several metres infield.

However once the resulting chaos was resolved, the defenders ended up gaining possession, and tapping the ball into play to end the half.

Poor mistakes by the officials not checking where the ball was. Really bad play by the player barking orders at the touch judge to start it.

The Perfect Ten wrote: Sadly rugby is slowly going the way of football with more and more players calling for decisions from the referee.

Agreed.
I get the idea it is a particular problem in the Championship.
In the televised Premiership players wouldn’t get away with it.
In lower tiers players aren’t so well trained in how to cheat.

corporalcarrot wrote: Rugby can be a ruthless game. Very welcome 5 points for Jersey but the game was very much closer than the score line suggests and very harsh on Blues to take no points out of that game - they were far better than that. Two excellent defences and the forward packs closely matched but Jersey took their chances and always looked to attack when the chances came along so lets hope for the same effort and application in Reading next week.

You are too kind CC. Let's be honest here, Blues were poor today. Yes, the Jersey defence was on top form, but there was no real flair from the Bedford backs that we come to expect and they seemed to try to force the attacks rather than let them flow, opening up sides like we are used to seeing.
I was with a bunch of BB fans and it was summed up perfectly that whenever Jersey got into the Bedford 22 we came away with points, whenever Bedford got into the Reds 22 they didn't look like scoring.

No shame in that, we all know that they are a fantastic side and will bounce back, maybe the Ealing game took just a bit too much out of them.

castleparknight wrote: If you haven’t watched the Hartpury vs Doncaster Knights game yet I would heartily recommend it - some great rugby, beautiful hands and some well worked tries. A great advert for championship rugby

I watched all of it live, very good game and the quality of the streaming service from the RFU is definitely improving a lot. Doncaster played excellently and took all of their chances. I feel Hartpury are all but doomed.

it looks from photos as if Roy only has one boot on when he scores !!