Autumn Internationals 2022

I've been in Wales when they have beaten Ireland (many times!). I can assure you it's not just when they loose.

There is the older (55+) cohort of Welsh supporters who are salt of the earth type. They don't go to the internationals anymore. Link has been broken between club and country with the 'region' debacle.

It looks like they are going to get rid of Pivac now. Which I think is another ridiculous decision. Particularly if they replace him with Gatland. Gatland is an excellent selector but without Edwards he's going to struggle. Welsh rugby is broke, in many ways, any new head coach is going to be stuck with the current backroom team.

Reading Warburton's article last week about the problems facing Welsh rugby I'm not sure that money to the grassroots will deliver what it might if the structures were reformed alongside investment. His point that WRU is dominated by reps from the clubs at the board/executive level, which hobbles joined up thinking, is very well made.

Stuff happened behind the scenes to improve Italian systems of Rugby development, underage, pathways etc while O'Shea was the national coach.

A lot of people claim that he had involvement and that he was essentially doing the equivalent of Andy Farrell's job and Nucifora's job at the same time. I have no idea how true it is to give O'Shea credit.

Erasmus is a global figure in rugby. I think his criticism of Barnes, as wrong and baseless as they are, empowers these scumbags and makes it open season on the referee.

He made it far worse, and when things got out of hand, he could have stepped in to defuse it, but he didn't, he kept stoking it, then he sat back and laughed because he got exactly what he wanted.

I hope everyone now realises what he really is, because up to a few weeks, he still had quite a few defenders on boards.ie

We know Erasmus didn't criticize refs on the floor of the Harvard debating union. He deliberately picked the medium and ecosystem most likely to rile up the exact response he elicited. Guns make it easier to kill people, do you bring that up at a murderer's trial?

Respectfully, the main thing I don't realize is the intention of your original point.

To be clear, I don't think you are trying to mitigate Erasmus's culpability. But we all know SM is a dumpster fire that allows cowards to hide behind anonymity, and we all know that this has happened before, and we all know (hope) that whomever is actually threatening refs and their family members will be investigated.

If anything, Erasmus leveraged off the preexisting context to achieve his goals.

There doesn't seem to be a huge amount we disagree on. Maybe just how we define "it" in your sentence, "it didn't just start when he kicked off".

If you define "it" as just knuckleheads being generally horrible on Twitter, you are right, that didn't start with Erasmus.

But if you define "it" as the targeted and temporally localized spike in threats of violence toward IRB officials and their families, I would argue, that is solely on him and how he capitalized on that very pre-existing context.

If it hasn't already been mentioned here, it's a textbook case of stochastic terrorism:

"the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted"

"A subsection of social media users are awful people, who saw awful things to other people."

"Rassie Erasmus directed these people towards a target of his choice, intentionally, for his own aims".

Both of these statements are true, and neither excuses the other. Otherwise incitement to violence wouldn't exist as a crime. Imagine there's a massive hose leaking water all over the road - if I take that hose, and point it towards my neighbor's house, I can't absolve myself of blame for flooding their garden because "sure that water was already out there, and it was flooding things anyway".

To my mind that is a statement that WR told them to issue.

I'd say WR were disgusted that SA came out with that but decided it wasn't worth the hassle to pull them up on it.

When I read it from a WR point a view (The real power holders) I would be thinking along the lines lets give them a bit more rope because we are creating a noose.

There was agreement that further dialogue was needed - True. & we have 7 months without noise to draw up plans to make sure this never happens again.

in terms of enhancing the process - Fine and there will ONLY be the official process. Now with Hard Red Lines.

that operates between teams and match officials - Fine. It will be "enhanced" with Red Lines.

to ensure all can play their part in creating great spectacles - Fine. You condescending fukks.

and avoid frustration - Not so Fine. But you step outside the official process there will be draconian punishments impacting on you at WC

but in a way that underpins the respect for match officials, - Fine. You have deliberately undermined match officials. See above

coaches and players.” See above