chickenfeet

I thought the Irish raised gamesmanship to new heights at Croke Park. The whole pre-game seemed to have been scripted to take the steam out of the All Black. Maybe that's fair enough given the way New Zealand use invented traditions around the haka as an intimidation ritual but it was pretty extreme. First, they waited forever before following the All Blacks onto the pitch. Then came the anthems. I have never in my life heard the New Zealand national anthem played at such a slow tempo. This was made more apparent as the band immediately switched to a "quick march" tempo for both the Irish anthem and "Ireland's Call". Then came the haka, after which, normally, the game starts but this time the Irish went back to doing warm up drills I really don't think the referee should have let them get away with that stunt but he did.

The game itself was not great. I doubt either side has made that many errors in a game in a long time. That said both teams played with ambition which was a pleasant contrast with some recent games like the utterly sterile Wales - South Africa game last week which should have had a net umpire not a referee. I thought New Zealand were the better side and deserved to win. On the big controversy over the penalty try, I'm with the ref. A penalty offence was clearly committed. The only player who could legitimately have stopped a try being scored was the offender. Penalty try and yellow card was really the only option the ref had.

( Law 10.2 )