2023 RWC Buildup, Squads, Fixtures 'etc'

Andy Farrell's response should have been 'I have nothing to say publicly about this matter, next question please'.

That Owen is is son, is utterly irrelevant to Irish Rugby and the Ireland team.

If they pushed him, he should have done what many Manager's at press conferences have done before, just sipped his water in silence until the PRO moved the journos on to Ireland related topics.

Agreed, it sounds like a from the heart statement in relation to his son and something he wanted to get off his chest.

Re the possible booing, if it was anyone else I would have expected it, but I think Irish fans would have too much respect for Andy to boo his son in front of him, and from the statement I think it would have hurt.

I also think Owen went into the disciplinary hearing fully expecting a ban, and the change of direction argument was hoping to mitigate a possible 6 game ban to 3. I doubt he even expected it to be rescinded.

Shame on the hack for sure, but now its become the story. It shouldn't be anything to do with the story.

By the way, the reason Andy Farrell is disgusted with the circus around is different to the reason most of the rest of us are disgusted with the circus around it. And thats why he should have said absolutely nothing.

Overall i think he was frustrated at his own performance, he'd dropped the ball when a passing attempt hit his own hip and then kicked a woeful cross field kick just prior to the incident.

Reminded me of Keane when he said if he was having a poor game the red mist would descend and he'd smash someone. I think he's a decent enough bloke, i think a lot saw a different side of him in the press conference prior to the 6N game. If he'd been banned then there would be no circus, biggest fault i can see with the disciplinary panel is they were all from the same country, that should not happen.

Just no. You are utterly wrong. A father protecting his son is what any father does. He basically said that in his statement.

Anyway it's a non story.

Those are sensational alright. It's incredible how poor the design stylings of most jerseys are. Whole industry of fashion designers, and we basically a colour slider being moved left or right.

Referees were put in a bad position for the South Africa penalty try. I think it's more than likely that Moodie knocked it on, before Dyer slapped it out to touch. But there was no definitive angle to prove it.

I mean I agree about Dyer getting a yellow and Wales being penalised but I totally disagree about the penalty try, Moodie misses the ball and no-one is there to potentially catch the ball afterwards.