Match officials to April 20

[RugbyRef]

Ah, I see.

Thanks for nomination Snob, but those buggers run too quick for me. :-)

[andrewg]

OK.....

Angus Cottrell gets yellow carded for a shoulder charge during the normal run of play when the guy he was tackling was expecting a tackle and Angus had little time to prepare.

We copped that one.

Gus Gardner, to his credit, out of the corner of his eye sees an illegal shoulder charge cleanout against the Bulls #7 Jacques du Plessis when he takes out Matt Hodgson who has his head down and focus on the breakdown.
(Have a look at Hodgo's cheek bone in the post match interview.)

The TMO confirms that it was a shoulder charge but says that only a penalty is warranted.

Gus has the power to over-ride the TMO but decided to simply over-turn the penalty advantage that the Bulls had already earned.

This type of illegal cleanout has a far greater possibility of doing serious injury that Angus Cottrell's near perfect tackle.

In my view yet another extremely poor decision by Gus Gardener which flies in the face of the focus of most referees decisions in recent weeks. And yet again the Force is at the receiving end of this newby who the Force has had to suffer for 67% of his Super XV games.

Now it's going to be a letter to the ARU as players at the breakdown need more protection than this!!
And to query why the Force has to keep getting Gus Gardner!!

[Ralto]

I quite like Andrew Lees' refereeing style. Hopefully he will have a good match, with rugby as the clear winner at the end of the day

63. Friday 25 April Brumbies v Chiefs GIO Stadium Canberra 17:40 Steve Walsh Rohan Hoffmann Andrew Lees George Ayoub
Walshy back to his best, with Lees chipping in a few times - last night I think they could solve global warming between them

[GIGS20]

I wonder if they'll ship Angus Gardner to South Africa to continue the torture?