SA vs Ireland First Test 2024 - The World Champions vs The Best Team in the World

I'm not ignoring or or refused to engage with thos points. I'm happy yo point out how flawed those points are.

(i) you have no idea what the ref is looking at when the play original unfolded. You, for some reason, are completely ignoring the fact the ref saw the reply and was happy to change his decision once he was it again. (ii) that has no relevance to the decision made by the ref and to the question of whether it was a foul. Your point seems to be that because lots of other fouls are missed that they should just ignore ones when they see them. That doesn't make any sense and raises the question of why bother having a TMO at all. If you think a TMO should be scrapped fair enough. (iii) Maybe it's just a big massive coincidence that the way he was cleared out forced him to move his foot towards the ball he knew was there and hook back on to his teams side. As I said, I think coming that conclusion is a significant reach.

No the player won't be in that situation a million times.

From watching rugby for a long time a player on the ground kicking the ball out of a ruck, intentional or not, is a rare thing to happen.

Roughly how many situations do you think a player is in where a ball touches them? It's a huge amount. They know what a bouncing ball feels like when it hits them, to claim otherwise and that they are oblivious when it happens is crazy tbh.

OK go back and watch the Kolisi/Henshaw incident, Kolisi does go over to check with the ref at least. In the entire time for the Casey not one of the SA players never leave their huddle. I'd like to give RG the benefit of the doubt but no can do in this case.

I think you're missing the point. Like I said late tackles are always going to be part of the game but show at least some sort of compassion or respect and acknowledge your mistake, he knows well what he did.

Ah now. Only one poster going through hoops.

Also you will find, if Predergast put in a great defensive game but couldn't hit a barn door the accusation will be thrown at him that his primary role is to kick goals.

It's a vicious circle

I was impressed with Casey, had a question mark over him personally and I felt Doak was potentially the future.

But Casey had a good game and as I said I was impressed, it was a pity he is missing this week

I think Casey must be hugely frustrated. I thought he was having a good game on Saturday, in what was his first start for Ireland against decent opposition. He'd have been relishing the chance for another outing this weekend. I still think he's a better player than Doak (who's form has trended downwards I think over the past year or so), but Doak undoubtedly has potential.

Would rather either of them ahead of Caolin Blade, who had a poor season.

Yeah, I do agree with that. I'm hopeful they can keep improving, because there's a lot of talented players up there. .

As a guy who is just 22 (doesn't turn 23 until December), Doak has already played a huge amount of rugby. 71 appearances for Ulster over the past 3 years (plus two brief appearances in the covid interrupted season). By contrast, Joe McCarthy, a year older, has played 35 times for Leinster (did miss some time with injury in the 22/23 season) and Jamie Osborne (a month older than Doak) has played 48 times for Leinster.

Definitely agree that Doak needs to just focus on 9 though and progress there.