Munster V Southern Kings Interesting stat

Marc Wakeham


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Munster Southern Kings

0 15 Penalties

0 1 Free Kicks




Really?
 

Marc Wakeham


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Do you really thing there would not be a single offence that was material or from which no advantage was gained? I can only conclude that ti was an incredible display of discipline or the ref missed a lot. I wonder which it was?
 
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Phil E


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Where did you get the stats from?
They could just be wrong.

Or did you watch the game?
 

Marc Wakeham


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Where did you get the stats from?
They could just be wrong.

Or did you watch the game?

ESPN's stats. Not always perfect. No personal viewing. Just seems very odd.
 

Phil E


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ESPN's stats. Not always perfect. No personal viewing. Just seems very odd.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Munster PK stats just hadn't pulled through from Opta.
We occasionally have problems at work with Opta stats not displaying correctly.

I can't find PK stats but did see SK had three yellow cards, so they were clearly on the edge. None of the match reports say anything unusual about the officiating or the penalties.
 

Marc Wakeham


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The last bit, SK being under the cosh (not a shock, they are terrible) would suggest that advantage and material effect did not play a big part. Clearly they would need the relief of PK.

I'll try to find the game on catch up. Was hoping some one had seen it.
 

Rich_NL

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There were no penalties against Munster. Some of the clips I've seen were... interesting. (E.g. https://i.imgur.com/ciegOmG.gif )

I believe it was the ref's first top tier game and he was very much of the "let it flow" persuasion. It's still a remarkable statistic.
 

L'irlandais

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In fairness I thought the ref had a reasonably good game. I «*watched*» the game on my radio as usual. 5 players had been released back from Ireland camp for the Friday night lights add that to a fair number of caps already in the Munster squad and I think you will find Munster were incredibly disciplined. Yes, they get away will far too much handling of the ball off their feet, but discipline these days is sadly more about playing the whistle rather than respecting the LoTG. The South Africans were very ill-disciplined and unlike the team that beat Edinburgh the previous weekend. Stats, are only as useful as your interpretation of them. The referee can only whistle what’s in front of him; if one team insist on not listening to the man and the other team are cute enough not to infringe on things the match ref is hot about, what can you do? Munster are not the saints zero penalties would suggest and presumably SK will go home feeling they are better than the 15 penalties they foolishly gave away.

Match Officials
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR, competition debut)
Assistant Referees: Sean Gallagher (IRFU) & Matteo Liperini (FIR)
TMO: Alan Falzone (FIR)


 
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Marc Wakeham


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In fairness I thought the ref had a reasonably good game. I «*watched*» the game on my radio as usual. 5 players had been released back from Ireland camp for the Friday night lights add that to a fair number of caps already in the Munster squad and I think you will find Munster were incredibly disciplined. Yes, they get away will far too much handling of the ball off their feet, but discipline these days is sadly more about playing the whistle rather than respecting the LoTG. The South Africans were very ill-disciplined and unlike the team that beat Edinburgh the previous weekend. Stats, are only as useful as your interpretation of them. The referee can only whistle what’s in front of him; if one team insist on not listening to the man and the other team are cute enough not to infringe on things the match ref is hot about, what can you do? Munster are not the saints zero penalties would suggest and presumably SK will go home feeling they are better than the 15 penalties they foolishly gave away.

Match Officials
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR, competition debut)
Assistant Referees: Sean Gallagher (IRFU) & Matteo Liperini (FIR)
TMO: Alan Falzone (FIR)




So, taking Rich_NL's post and this on It suggests Munster "got away with" a "keep it flowing" ref whilst the other side did not. That sound less fair. Ref's need t obe fair and consistent rather than "hot" on their "pet offences".
 

L'irlandais

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So, taking Rich_NL's post and this on It suggests Munster "got away with" a "keep it flowing" ref whilst the other side did not. That sound less fair. Ref's need t obe fair and consistent rather than "hot" on their "pet offences".
Unfortunately it is human nature. We all try to be consistent, but can only concentrate on so many things at once. Is there a particular offense you feel he repeatedly penalized SK for, which he overlooked from the home side? It would be wrong to assume Munster got away with anything. SK were woeful and makes one wonder why they are in the Pro14. Munster on the other hand were very clinical, with a lot of players putting their hands up for a berth in the Japan RWC later this year. What do you expect the novice referee to do? Penalize Munster from time to time to even things up?

The 3 yellow cards were :
[LAWS]35' Ruan Lerm was for an infringement in the ruck
68' Tertius Kruger
69' Andisa Ntsila for a dangerous tackle on Red14[/LAWS]
Kings were penalized for a high tackle on 18 minutes.
On 22 minutes they were penalized in the Scrum
On 23 minutes they were once again penalized for a high tackle
34 minutes presumably a penalty to go with YC
50 minutes Kings penalized as Munster dominate in the scrum
68 presumably a further penalty with YC
69 presumably a penalty also
 
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DocY


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So, taking Rich_NL's post and this on It suggests Munster "got away with" a "keep it flowing" ref whilst the other side did not. That sound less fair. Ref's need t obe fair and consistent rather than "hot" on their "pet offences".

Unfortunately it's a fact of life that different refs are hot or relaxed on different things. But as long as they're being consistently relaxed/hot I don't think that's unfair. It's up to the players to adapt and take advantage.

But most accusations of bias stem from this, IME: coaches and supporters complaining that a ref is biased because he's always letting the opposition get away with X and always penalising their team for Y. "Well have your team done X at all? And have the opposition done Y?" helps them think.
 

Rich_NL

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If I came off a pitch without having penalised one team at all in 80 minutes, I'd be extremely critical of my own performance.

I don't have any reason to believe there was a bias. All referees have bugbears, things they let slide, and blind spots. At the top level you hope #3 is minimal, and that the first two aren't too extreme. All laws have some logic behind them in promoting safety, contest, etc... and all teams play to the edge of the laws for the most advantage.

So if a team, especially a winning team, doesn't once get penalised, my first assumption is that I either have a major blind spot, or I'm letting some things slide to the extent that I'm compromising safety or contest.
 

L'irlandais

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I am pretty sure Andrea Piardi has learned alot from his step up to Pro 14 rugby matches. If somebody would like to state concretely what exactly his mistake was, I will happily come to his defence. But as things stand he is accused only of not penalizing the winning team during the 80 minutes.
 

Marc Wakeham


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I am pretty sure Andrea Piardi has learned alot from his step up to Pro 14 rugby matches. If somebody would like to state concretely what exactly his mistake was, I will happily come to his defence. But as things stand he is accused only of not penalizing the winning team during the 80 minutes.

Another poster has already done that for you. Here it is:

Yes, they get away will far too much handling of the ball off their feet...

- - - Updated - - -

If I came off a pitch without having penalised one team at all in 80 minutes, I'd be extremely critical of my own performance.

I don't have any reason to believe there was a bias. All referees have bugbears, things they let slide, and blind spots. At the top level you hope #3 is minimal, and that the first two aren't too extreme. All laws have some logic behind them in promoting safety, contest, etc... and all teams play to the edge of the laws for the most advantage.

So if a team, especially a winning team, doesn't once get penalised, my first assumption is that I either have a major blind spot, or I'm letting some things slide to the extent that I'm compromising safety or contest.

Exactly
 

Rich_NL

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I wasn't there, and can't judge much on a 4 minute highlights reel. As I said, I don't believe at all that the referee was consciously biased in favour of one time, or against the other. I also don't believe SK were robbed of a victory; it's a result you'd expect from a top team against a bottom-of-table team. No one is accusing Munster of impropriety.

I don't know how many games end with such a penalty count, but I have never heard of it in any competitive senior game, and only once of an U16 youth game, in which the referee felt that he shouldn't blow any penalties at all (this turned out to be one the sort of terrible match one might predict, incidentally). You may not find it noteworthy, nor may you be inclined to introspection if you refereed such a game. Perhaps there's nothing to learn from it at all; I find it curious, though.
 

L'irlandais

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Another poster has already done that for you. Here it is:
- - - Updated - - -
Exactly

The handling in the ruck is one of those accepted things. When Munster were camped on the opposition’s goal-line, stopped inches short, the ball invariably finds its way back, even when the scrum half is at the bottom of those rucks. What offense would you have blown for? The referee was well positioned. No mention of him penalising SK for such an infringement, but then they never were camped on the Munster line for long periods.

Munster had 50 International caps in the match day squad. So an experienced side. I am unaware if the SK have any capped players. They were incredibly poor and ended up paying for it, on the scoreline.

Munster: Mike Haley; Andrew Conway (1), Chris Farrell (4), Rory Scannell (9), Darren Sweetnam(2); Tyler Bleyendaal (C), Neil Cronin; Jeremy Loughman, Niall Scannell(8), John Ryan (16) Jean Kleyn, Billy Holland (1); Fineen Wycherley, Chris Cloete, Arno Botha (2 RSA)
Replacements: Rhys Marshall, Liam O’Connor, Stephen Archer (2), Darren O’Shea, Gavin Coombes (Academy), Alby Mathewson (5 NZ), JJ Hanrahan, Dan Goggin.

They left a further 28 caps off the match day squad.
Dave Kilcoyne (Munster/UL Bohemians) 24 caps
Tadhg Beirne (Munster/Lansdowne) 4 caps.
That for me speaks volumes for the form of that selected front row and replacement front row.

A curious stat, no more. The referee cannot penalise a team if he doesn’t see them infringing.
Perhaps he was distracted by the sheer volume of handling errors and dangerous / high tackles the South Africans were making.
 
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L'irlandais

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It wouldn't surprise me if the Munster PK stats just hadn't pulled through from Opta.
We occasionally have problems at work with Opta stats not displaying correctly.

I can't find PK stats but did see SK had three yellow cards, so they were clearly on the edge. None of the match reports say anything unusual about the officiating or the penalties.
Yes, often 0 penalty is a software quirk rather than an onfield statistic.

[LAWS]Ireland were the least penalised side in last year’s Six Nations, infringing just 34 times, and yellow-carded once, well below England and Italy, who gave away 58 penalties, Wales who conceded 42 and Scotland with 40.[/LAWS]Another thing to bear in mind, is any player wanting to get Joe Schmidt’s attention, will doubtlessly be aware that low penalty counts matter to The Ireland coach. Unlike Eddie Jones who said after the Scotland game «*successful teams infringe*», and he might have a point there
 
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Marc Wakeham


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The handling in the ruck is one of those accepted things.

A curious stat, no more. The referee cannot penalise a team if he doesn’t see them infringing.
Perhaps he was distracted by the sheer volume of handling errors and dangerous / high tackles the South Africans were making.

Dos not make it right.

Sheer volume? 15 penalties is high but not incredibly high. More than the'y like I'm sure but "sheer volume", come off it.

You admit Munster cheat on the floor and expect me to belive that the ref did not see any of them? Or indeed his ARs.

Oh sorry, that cheating is "acceptable". My error.
 
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