The ABs are the best team in world rugby. It doesn't help, though, when officials continually and deliberately turn a blind eye to their thuggery and gamesmanship. It is hard enough for any team to play them without having to play the officials as well. And this is what happens. Biased? No! just check out U Tube incidents of what they have been allowed to get away with in the past. Spear tackles (BO'D), stamping and cheap shots from behind such as the one that took out Bradley Davies (RED card) - all part of the jigsaw that makes up NZ rugby. I am not ignoring the fact that they are an awesome team and have been for at the top for many years. But how much of that is due to benign officials who choose to turn their blind eye to their antics? I repeat that the evidence is there for anyone who chooses to look. Hard, irrefutable evidence that it would take a blind-eyed idiot to deny. It is for this reason that I long ago abandoned rugby as a credible sport to seriously follow. Most games are decided by the bias and the whims of the officials, which is sometimes so blatant it beggars belief. They can get away with it because the laws are so loose they rely on interpretation. It means that a referee who wants to cheat can do so with impunity and, of course, the IRB always support their darling officials no matter what the evidence to the contrary. It is truly a corrupt and pathetic sport and I'm baffled that commentators and pundits don't do more to draw attention to it. But then that's not the done thing in the "gentlemen's sport is it? Laughable and pitiful.
A woman in her 20's was beaten up on a train coming home from Cardiff by a man in his 40's. Imagine the uproar if that was coming home from a footie match.
