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Andrea Piardi

I don't think there's a vast chasm at all. Partly because there's no objective line between
- "ref had a challenging game, the teams were hard to manage, did well under the circumstances and shows promise"
- "ref lost control towards the end, needs to drop back a level and work on things"
- "ref had a shocker, what can you expect from women/Italians/LGBTQ/etc?"

It's a judgement thing, it's coloured by personal preference and style considerations, by the direction assessors want rugby to go, and by prejudice (whether against a group, or for a team or nation). The next time Hollie Davidson refs a competitive mens' match, take a look at the comments from fans, especially of the losing side.

Besides, having top referees benefits a union's referee system, greatly. So besides the personal development aspect, there's a global development aspect.
 
Piardi had an excellent match in Melbourne. Cool, calm, collected & accurate.
Only decisions I'd have a think about were:
1. Wallabies first try. Did the try scorer propel himself forward with his legs post-tackle?, and
2. The dangerous breakdown entry by BIL in last 30 seconds. I'm sure there'll be lots of discussions around that
 
Dickie E said:
Piardi had an excellent match in Melbourne. Cool, calm, collected & accurate.
Only decisions I'd have a think about were:
1. Wallabies first try. Did the try scorer propel himself forward with his legs post-tackle?, and
2. The dangerous breakdown entry by BIL in last 30 seconds. I'm sure there'll be lots of discussions around that
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I would also question some of the handling of the scrum, in particular two successive instances of the Lions loosehead clearly (to my naïve eye) pulling it down. Although given their positioning, this is more a matter of the AR (BO'K?) and his interactions with the match ref. And all, of course, given that reffing of the scrum is a mystery for the ages.
 
I thought the BIL LH was pulling down on at least two PK awarded to the Lions. Same player was pinged 3 times in the first test for it. Piardi took the exact opposit view. Other than thar I thought he had a good game The Aussie first try, the Lions hookers dive to score and the Morgan clearout were both open to interpretation. I could see them both going the other way on another day. Thew scrums were, for me, just wrong.
 
If referees don’t sort out the basics at the scrum you will always have these issues. Because TV refs won’t reform/reset a scrum when the binding isn’t correct they will always end up with more guessing. Several of these scrums should have simply been reset early, or if there was repetition penalised, just like they are at community level. Several of these scrums were always going to end badly, as any experienced community ref would tell you.
 
I thought, in the main, he was excellent, much as Dickie said, and an improvement on the previous week. Great communication, and at last management of an offside line.

The last decision...he managed the process well and communicated ot effectively.

Was he right? In the cold hard light of day, and sober, I don't think the Lions copuld have complained if he'd overturned it.

The Australian player is legal - there's no ruck, and no onus on the jackler to have head above hips.
The point of contact looks be on the neck.

It comes down to whether you believe, as AP did, that they came together at the same time, or if Morgan was late. I'd have hated to have had to make that call.

WHat it did highlight to me though is the danger of what the modern breakdown has become. The body positions of jacklers are just asking for something catastrophic to happen. Bodies are flying in, at speed, from all angles. I think the breakdown is the next scrum - lax application of law, going back years, will mean that the lawmakes will forever be tweaking and chasing themselves, rather than simply going back to basics and applying the law as writ.
 
If AP had penalised that incident it would have been a rabbit out of hat call and would have meant that practically all the previous breakdowns in the game should have been penalised for practically the same thing.
 
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Marc Wakeham said:
I thought the BIL LH was pulling down on at least two PK awarded to the Lions. Same player was pinged 3 times in the first test for it. Piardi took the exact opposit view. Other than thar I thought he had a good game The Aussie first try, the Lions hookers dive to score and the Morgan clearout were both open to interpretation. I could see them both going the other way on another day. Thew scrums were, for me, just wrong.
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I believe the AR (O'Keefe?) called in the scrum penalties, although I'm not sure.
 
Immediately after half time the interpretation of ruck entry points did change and a few tangential entries were penalised that did not get attention in the first half, mind you they were blatant and directly in front of him.

I did think he "contributed" to one Aus try where he was so close to the ruck that the try scorer ran around him and he prevented the pillar tackler getting close.

The final ruck and the subsequent analysis could be seen as decisive but I am certain if we broke it down for analysis that 90%+ of the other rucks we would see identical body positions and actions and I'm with @Balones that this would make the game unplayable.

If the Australians have complained and this is taken forward perhaps it will change the dynamics and remove the jackle.

Scrums, let's apply the Laws including getting rid of this stupid acceptance of feeding. Props prop, ball goes in down the centre line and straight, hookers hook, other 5 push, competition.
 
jeremy said:
I would also question some of the handling of the scrum, in particular two successive instances of the Lions loosehead clearly (to my naïve eye) pulling it down. Although given their positioning, this is more a matter of the AR (BO'K?) and his interactions with the match ref. And all, of course, given that reffing of the scrum is a mystery for the ages.
Click to expand...
I think the focus was on the Aus props foot position versus the negative effect of the Lions loosehead low elbow and squeezing him in and pulling down.
 
SimonSmith said:
Was he right? In the cold hard light of day, and sober, I don't think the Lions copuld have complained if he'd overturned it.

The Australian player is legal - there's no ruck, and no onus on the jackler to have head above hips.
The point of contact looks be on the neck.

It comes down to whether you believe, as AP did, that they came together at the same time, or if Morgan was late. I'd have hated to have had to make that call.
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Easy call.
You can hear the TMO say that they "arrive at the same time", and AP repeats this. My eyes see that one player is clearly over the ball and the other one is cleaning him out. Sure it's the final play of 80 minutes but hard to defend this one, when we see yellow cards for this every weekend.
 
shebeen said:
Easy call.
You can hear the TMO say that they "arrive at the same time", and AP repeats this. My eyes see that one player is clearly over the ball and the other one is cleaning him out. Sure it's the final play of 80 minutes but hard to defend this one, when we see yellow cards for this every weekend.
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That's an important point. If they've erroneously concluded that players arrived at same time then any following decisions are based on a fallacy
 
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