Rugby: Wales v New Zealand

Three quick observations on the Wales v New Zealand game that took place today. Same old story for the home side, in recent years they have specialised in running the All Blacks close, but have still not beaten them in 56 years.

1 – The state of the Millennium Stadium pitch. This has been a recurring theme since the stadium opened. The ground was cutting up terribly underfoot, players were consistently slipping over, especially when changing direction and scrummaging, robbing fans of the best attacking rugby. The stadium is a multi-purpose ground, but rugby is its number one function, and it is owned by the WRU. Whether it is to do with the weather in Cardiff, or the way the stadium is built does not matter, for a pitch to cut up that badly in an international is not acceptable.

2 – Refereeing. Whether or not the All Blacks got the rub of the green with refereeing decisions, Jonathan Davies correctly observed on the BBC that decisions tend to favour the side on top. Warren Gatland’s post-match comments were clearly calculated, as all his controversial remarks are, but as Davies alluded to, if the Welsh get forward momentum into the contact areas, decisions will follow. It is up to Wales to manage the referee as effectively as their opponents do. The referee did not have a bad game, and did not make many clear-cut mistakes, it was the 50-50 calls that went against Wales.

3 – Unnecessary controversy. The BBC has consistently high-quality rugby coverage in terms of presentation, commentators, pundits and analysis, but they have an unhealthy obsession with generating controversy, inevitably fuelled by their asking for the public’s views. Dan Carter’s high tackle on Martin Roberts should have been penalised, but nothing more than that. High tackles happen in rugby, sometimes they are reckless, occasionally they are vicious, but often they are just a miscalculation, as was the case here. The crowd booed as it occurred at a critical juncture, but after the game John Inverdale insisted on labouring the point, when the expert panel clearly did not see much worthy of discussion. The time would have been better spent picking apart the game with the expert rugby brains of Guscott, Davies and Marshall, all of whose analysis was excellent. Similarly, although Warren Gatland’s post-match comments were unprompted, they sparked an exercise in how much controversy could be generated from them. The producers need to realise that the rugby provides all the drama that the fans want, and there is no need to force things.