France v South Africa

What a game this is. End to end with tries at every opportunity

 

First time I've ever seen a conversion charged down. It's relentless, could end up 45 apiece at this rate.

 

We've no chance.

 

I'm not a RU fan (as I keep saying), but I admit I do like seeing the best teams meet each other like this in Qtrs and Semis. And they absolutely give it 110%.

 

Would have got brilliant odds at the start of the tournament that England would be the last northern hemisphere side remaining.

 

The penalty when he kicked it backwards in his own 22 and the 22 drop out straight into touch killed France.

 

Totally missed this thread, been posting in t'other one.

 

Currently in Cape Town and watched it with the locals at the Waterfront. Amazing atmosphere and top drawer rugby (as was the Ireland v New Zealand game yesterday).

 

This irritating little s h I t.

 

If there's anyone I hate losing to more than the French it's the (mum calls them gay Australians) South Africans.

 

Rumours going round that South Africa cheated last night in their use of substitutions.. taking their best players off for a rest and then using imaginary head injury checks to other players to allow them to come back on.

 

The head injury assessments are only sanctioned by match officials, the team's own doctor or the Match Day Doctor, part of the rationale for this was to prevent misuse in the circumstances you describe..

A collision with the potential for concussion has to be seen, and the latter of the three above often uses HawkEye to review a challenge independently, including whether or not a collision even occurred. Would be very hard to "cheat" using the HIA protocol.

 

Not hard at all from reading a few Rugby forums.. the player feigns injury and they just get their own team doctor to call for the HiA...which he passes and can come back on later in the game... interestingly the SA coach Erasmus said on Monday that 'he didn't know who called it and there's nothing more to discuss.'
It effectively gave SA 10 second half substitutions.. part of the suspicion is that on 46mins SA put on a hooker to replace a flanker, meaning that they had 2 Hookers on the pitch until it came time to bring a rested flanker back on for the' spare' hooker... had they not had the extra hooker on the pitch already it would have meant uncontested scrums which would really have suited France.

 

He's a hero in Sale though.

 

I can see where the speculation comes from but it's not something I buy into, partly from previous experience.
I was lucky enough to work on the medical team at the 2015 RWC and all of the medical decisions are ultimately covered by the Matchday Doctor and TV footage reviewed - not sure how many camera angles are available now, but in 2015 the Matchday Doctor could instantly review up to 32 camera feeds. I guess there's more of a tendency to err on the side of caution with less severe collisions perhaps, given what they now know about the consequences of badly managed concussion?
Of course, Medical "corruption" is a real thing, cycling has been a big victim of it, and even Rugby at club level had "bloodgate" a few years ago, i just think that with what's in place at events of the stature of the RWC that there isn't a hiding place.
Medical corruption troubles me as a health worker, arguably more than the sporting "cheat" if that makes sense.

 

Thanks for that... interestingly perhaps Erasmus said that they have their own cameras.