well welcome back to a very wet and miserable west wales
i'm feeling a bit miserable myself to be honest with you
we're gonna have to talk about that one are we apparently we are anyway there's plenty to
come we'll talk about the 13 men italy had to go down to out in dublin and that england try
should it have stood interesting 100% Bath 100% the georgian referee has a big decision to make
and a correct decision he sends the player off and if you don't believe me have a look at maro smile
right then it's time for your emress fans questions
first up corbs has sent me a video all the way from los angeles hey nige uh corbs here uh just
wondering your thoughts on the rule in the six nations do you think it's actually stopping axle
loading and do you think it's going to be rolled out across the game very interesting actually
that one um now i don't think the brake foot will actually stop the loading but what the brake foot
is supposed to do is to help the referee get the stability to prevent the loading so
even though that the brake foot is now part of the setup the referee still has to make sure
that the two front rows don't lean into each other and give that loading before the setup so yeah i
think it is something that certainly can help with stability and it may come in across the board are
you a bath shower guy 100 bath 100 shower if i'm in a rush but before a game i always had a bath
every time if you were running with a ball and you knocked it on but kicked it before it hit the
ground would it count as a kick or knock on good question daniel will count as a knock on because
they deem you have lost control of the ball and the law says if you lose control of the ball
you must regather possession of it before it hits the ground or anything else so it's a knock on
would your greatest world 15 of all time be and can you explain your reason for each player you
select mathew that's going to take some time to do that we may get to that another day but i'll tell
you my favorite player i refereed him and i love watching him play now and that is anton dupont
from france i have loads of other favorite players as well brilliant but at the moment
he is absolutely brilliant and a joy to watch nigel who is your favorite captain to referee
my favorite captain was terry de cetra because he was a proper gentleman on and off the field
before during and after the game a real gentleman of the game
right then time for whistle watch and i said last week tonight there'd be plenty to talk about this
week and here we go we're getting the dump run try in a minute but first of all let's start out in
dublin where italy went down to 13 men had a lot of you scratching your heads a lot of the players
did as well on the field how did it all come about well first of all the italy hooker gets injured
so he's gone off the field now when you go off the field as an injury you are then replaced
which means under no circumstances at all as an injured player can you come back onto the field
of play if he had gone off as a substitution he'd have been able to come back on for hia for blood
or as a front row replacement so he's injured he can offer take no further apart in the game
then we have the red card to the hooker who's come on in in his place now the important thing here is
we are still seeing players tackling high look at the height of the tackler here he goes in high
guess it wrong not intentionally but you have contact with the neck head area under the
protocol and the guidelines particularly around player safety and hia we need to get this get
rid of this type of action out of the game so as players and coaches change of player behavior has
to happen you have to get those tackles lower or you are running the risk of this happening
so the georgian referee who did well in his first game in the six nations has a big decision to make
and a correct decision he sends the player off now what happens then everything is fine now until you
have a scrum because when you have a scrum you now need a hooker there's no hooker on the field what
happens you usually then take a back row player off and get the front row player on but in this
situation we don't have an occur to come back on which means now you go to uncontested scrums now
the rule is this on young contester scrums if you go to uncontested scrums in situations like this
if you have a front row player on the bench who can come on or can come back on he must do so so
they get him back on he is not able to play in the hooker position which means you have uncontested
scrums and because of that italy then have to drop the player and land up with 13 men and the
reason for that is because what was happening on occasions in the past was if a team were getting
nullified in the scrum they would sometimes go to uncontested scrum so they didn't have to to try
and take away the advantage that the opposition side had them so this is why this law was brought
in what some of you may be asking is well this is a bit harsh italy had a player genuinely injured
because he leaves the field early on they've also had a red card and now they're punished again
so maybe it is worth looking at the directive and protocol that in situations like this
whereas clearly the side are not trying to take advantage of the uncontested scrums where it
clearly is unavoidable maybe it is worth looking at is it a protocol directive that can come in so
we prevent it going down to 30 men on occasions like this something to have a think about right
let's go to the big talking point which a lot of you have been split on social media about it well
if you were english you were agreeing with the decision if you were welsh you were not now then
very difficult for a referee to see everything in the game so in this instance here what you
have you have a closing of the gap in the line out by the two teams nothing in legal in that at the
moment because if both of them are coming together to go and compete for a ball which is going to be
thrown down the middle so you're always going to have a coming together of the both teams
but what you can't do is then illegally push or badge an opponent out of that space to prevent
him winning the ball or to try and win the ball yourself tomorrow today uses his elbow to push
the welsh player out of the contest so that is an offense the ball goes over the top he's caught
by don brandt and then he crosses the try line gets the ball down and a try is awarded so what
should be happening here now is the tmo should be sweeping everything up he's always looking
in the background and let me let me give you a bit of information that you may not know when
you're watching the game at home you see something what the tmo has he will have usually a seven or
eight second delay where he will see that action again in some seconds so what usually happens is
if he sees something oh what happened there he would look in some seconds time see it again and
then decide nothing in it or oh we need to have a look at this so when the team always sweeping
up he should be then giving information to the referee or if the referee thinks something has
happened he can ask the tmo can you check to make sure there was no obstruction in the line out now
this didn't happen and it's quite surprising it didn't happen really because you have the worst
players going to the referee telling him look our player was pushed out can you please check
this this would then be triggering you to think let's have a look just to make sure it didn't
happen and the tri stood so on this occasion i would say that marui tojay got away with it and
england were very lucky to have that try and if you don't believe me have a look at mario smile
right then let's get up to murrayfield on a very interesting call via the tmo for ali price did he
get the ball down was he high tackle should have been a penalty try as john buckley was asking in
commentary right this is a very very interesting one and a very very difficult one for referees to
work through so let's take the high tackle first of all it's not the worst of high tackles the
player is high he catches ali price on the hand it then goes up and it goes around the back of
the neck and above the shoulders so if this was to happen anywhere in the field of play i'd be saying
okay it is a high tackle but it's a penalty only it is certainly nothing more so in this
instance the actual high tackle itself is not a yellow card now does the action of this site
tackle because you deem it to be a high tackle um does it prevent ali price from scoring a try
if it does on a try would have probably been scored in that instance then it becomes a penalty
try and we all know by now if it's a penalty try then the player who's committed defense
has to be yellow-carded that is within the laws of the game so but what we have here we have
another defender so i don't think you can say that ali price would have probably scored it's
very very close because he does get very close to getting that ball down so on this instance
i would say that it is just a penalty for a very unlucky high tackle if i can put it
that way and for me not to penalty try and not the yellow card but a very very interesting one
oh well we covered a lot there didn't we i think i need to lie down now anyway i'm
having a week off next week so can you as well we'll be back the week
after when we get to the business end of the six nations see you then