Newsgroups: rec.sport.rugby
Subject: Some further comments.
From: wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:27:13 +1200
Distribution: world
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Canterbury

From the Sydney game.

> The punch was actually thrown by Graham
>Purvis, not Dowd, and Eckert was blatantly offside for about the sixth time in
>the match.        ...............           Hell - I would have
>decked Eckert had I been playing.

I hope you're just exaggerating for effect here, Alan, otherwise I'll have to
strongly disagree with you for the first time in a good while. We all know
there is NO justification for punching and the like. Sure, it can get
massively frustrating when a guy constantly cheats like this; but as you said
the blame is on the ref. Also; the captain must take some blame - it is his right
and duty to speak to the ref, and try to get him to stay alert to what is
happening. If he can't do this in a polite, brief, and effective way, he 
shouldn't be captain.

> Michael Brials...... The second occasion
>saw him strike Steve McDowell on the arm about five or six times directly in
>front of the linesman, who was standing less than a metre away.

Quite right here, this was a shocker. I bet there's no mention of it in the 
Oz press, or by our Oz posters here on the net.

-------------

About Loe, on Carozza; (yet again).

No Oz is ever going to believe it could have been an accident; we're all going
to have to live with that. I still don't know if it was or not; but the NZU
believes it wasn't. Of course no Oz will ever be convinced, either, that they're
not all a bunch of unscrupulous, self-serving, win-at-all-costs chauvinists
with no real love for the game.   Isn't this obvious to all !!

Well; let me remind anyone who can still see through their rage-blind eyes, of
two clear facts. (i) the TV commentators, at the time, made NO suggestion that
it was a deliberate foul; and they're usually VERY quick and non-partizan
about this. (ii) the ref didn't see anything to worry about either - perhaps he
too has no love for the game ! And before you jump up and down; recall a ref is
quite at liberty to penalize foul play after a try is scored, and let the
scoring side kick off again with a penalty kick from half-way. This does happen.

------------

Some posters (with or without copious typos), have reacted very badly to my
suggestion that the Oz team are not terribly convincing world champs. That
they are not as convincing as when they won the '91WC, and nowhere near the
AB's of '87WC.   Well, I still think so.  But in any event, surely we can all
----------------------. maintain net politeness. This has always been one of
                      | the more gentlemanly newsgroups; let's leave the gutter
          \           | comments and common abuse to the politics, soc.men and
           \          | philosophy newsgroups where it belongs.
           \\         | 
            \\        | And maybe it's time we Australasians should start to
             )`--')   | rally round together and support one another's tours
            <  o /    | to South Africa.
             `\  /    | After all, think what a propaganda disaster it would
              / /     | be for them to beat BOTH of us, first time back !!!
         /_,, ~~      | 
        /   )         |=======================================================
        |  /          |
       /  _>    <-------- Bill Taylor         wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz
      /  /            |
     /   |            |=======================================================  
    |    /            |
    \___/             |Of COURSE you're entitled to your own opinions,   
      o               |            just keep them to yourself.
                      |=======================================================