One thing that has surprised me about attending Leinster rugby matches this season has been how few fans are aware of the full range of rules in the sport.
Little did I know I was actually one of them.
Often I would see scrums and penalties being awarded with people around me scratching their heads with no idea what transgression had occurred, and more often than not I would know enough about the game to be able to show off and explain what was going on.
But let me say this in all sincerity, putting all sour grapes aside – if the laws of the game dictate that what Tommy Bowe did just before half time yesterday really did warrant both a penalty try AND a yellow card, then the laws of the game are an ass.
Just what was he expected to do? Let Richie McCaw touch the ball down and do nothing? I can’t for the life of me understand why a ball that is kicked over the goal line isn’t fair game to players from both sides.
Maybe, MAYBE, if he knocked the ball forward, but he didn’t. It makes no sense to me that McCaw was in any way entitled to the ball.
I have devoted so many words of my report to that incident because I strongly believe the result of the contest could have been different without it.
Imagine the confidence that would flow through the dressing room had they gone in at 3-3 and a full compliment of 15 players. Sure, the ref (who seems to like the sound of his own voice by the way) atoned for the incident by binning Woodcock just after halftime, but the damage for me was already done.
As for the performance of Kidney’s men as a whole, we were resilient in the most part, though our tactical kicking let us down badly and prevented us troubling the scorers more than we did.
And can I also add that no matter how trivial the injury to Paul O’Connell may have seemed, there is no way he should have stayed on the park, and this was responsible for one of their tries since they simply ran around him and there was no cover to pick up the slack.
One thing the commentators failed to mention – if we had nicked a try right at the end even without a conversion, the extra five points would have brought us within the 15-point margin which would have made the result a positive one rankings-wise.
As it was, with Scotland losing so narrowly to the Springboks, and Canada their only remaining opponents this autumn, we really do need to beat Argentina to have a good chance of holding on to our eight seed slot for World Cup 2011.
It really is all to play for, and Declan Kidney is going to face a tough early challenge in his reign to get his men ready for it over the next few days.
