Castres halt Clermont juggernaut, La Rochelle and Lyon cut gap

I’m surprised it’s not exploited more in rugby. Why bother to fend when you’ve got two elbows!

It’s pretty easy to spot the one’s that just got on the wagon in 2019! Some of the bandits on here act like you’re stealing their pension fund when you critique their team. Great gas though.

They love to dish it out but can’t seem to hack it back.

Strength and honour, lad!

Galthie was witness in all these French cases. He cited the O’Mahony precedents etc and Willemse case. He knows the substantial difference in being able to show ‘Expected to Play a club match’ between a pre fallow red and a pre International red. The later case is unknowable. His public explosion in this matter was clearly vexacious.

His nickname in citing commission circles might be ‘The Boy Who Cries Wolf’.

IMO he is trying to help France by throwing a lot of brown stuff at the commission. He will end up hurting France.

They won’t need him until further into the knockouts. I just hope we’ve got the right Barrett when it comes to kicking.

“Immediately before the contact, the Player described that what looked like a slip on his part on the video footage was, in fact, the Player recognising that he was not in the correct position to make a legal tackle and so avoided planting his left foot and, instead, allowed himself to fall to his knees to reduce the force of the inevitable contact.”

If Dupont is out of the equation, that same phase of play represents 80%+ of rucks at test level.

I don’t think it’s a case of “silly games, silly prizes” for him. It should just have been a penalty for Ireland.

The call against POM for the allowed try was nuts. Flament obstructed POM which left a hole for Lucu. “He was running backwards…didn’t complete the tackle”. Just bizarre.

Carling ran a long way to influence Gardner for that decision. When I saw that two members of the English refs Whatsapp group was on the sideline I was expecting an intervention like that. Shocking.

Just hope it’s not too serious, 28 is a bad age for that type of lay-off. The sport needs him.

The world never got to see Ali or Pele do their thing around the time of their physical peak.

He shouldn’t have been off his feet trying to jackal the ball at a ruck, though.

Third world thcikso are the best - to mock. Their only value to the sport of rugby.

I disagree with this in the first instance there is a three on one if Osborne receives the pass. He will get past Moefana with only Ramos appearing to confront Osborne, Aki and Sheehan with no-one behind. Probable try, not toothless. As Osborne is on the opposite wing to what he has been training for there is a handling error (understandable). You did acknowledge that Lowe was a blow, but thsi was not a toothless attack, the French defense was beaten there.

The second instance is a kick to Nash, again he will not have trained as much on kick receipts and takes the ball into trouble. Ireland’s systemic preparation is massively important to them but vulnerable to a pre match injury.

As I said previously, in all parallell universes France win, but it might have been a better and more interesting contest without that Injury.

My hopeful view before that match was of a Leinster-LaRochelle type scenario with Ireland building a score and then withstanding an onslaught. Turned out first half was a low scoring Leinster-LaRochelle encounter. Second half was tired Leinster versus Fresh Toulouse.