Well shit.

SHIT.

I blame God. God clearly interfered and caused that knock-on so that I, specifically wouldn't get the trifecta over my grandmother.

That last 15 minutes was hard watching for me. Some shocking decisions made it very difficult for Wales to close the game out.

Fiji are good but, as a Wales fan, I think Caleb Muntz being injured might have been the difference here.

To be fair. Nobody likes the a capella except Scotland

I think with refereeing like Fiji experienced in their match against Wales it will be difficult. Its difficult to know what to put that down to really.

Some of it, like an insta yellow for a maul falling over is probably due to the refereeing dictates which put all the responsibility on a maul staying up on the defending team - despite there be sometimes upwards of 14 players pushing and shoving and pulling and struggling. Its just one of the reasons the maul is such a big try scorer and its far too OP this cycle.

But when you couple the recent judiciary decisions against the Pacific Islands it does start to make you wonder if Rugby collectively has some form of unconscious bias. Whether that's NH - SH, or Tier 1 - Tier 2, or Coloniser - Colonised, or whatever I think there really does need to be some kind of reckoning as to how Wales got away with infringing on their line for so long before the referee belatedly did something about it.

For some reason, WR's referee appointments process has mythologised the qualities of English referees - such that somehow at this World Cup they represent 1/3 of all the match day referees. There is simply no representation for any 2nd tier country other than Romania. I mean christ, just cast your eye over the faces of the entirety of the match day official line up and its just not good enough: https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/match-officials

I get that people want some form of measuring stick to ensure the best referees are at the cup, but the truth is that the laws give so many choices as to who did something bad at any play, which means so much of rugby comes down to interpretation on the day and there can be wild differences from referee to referee anyway that you may as well just pick them randomly & hope the teams can adapt.

Same should be a very exciting match. @Olap@lemmy.world how you think Scotland will do?

Sorry bud, Marx and Bongi are not for sale

Oh man it's been such a physical contest. Can go either way

Yeah, sweat must be getting to everyone. Gloves were all the rage 20 years ago. They might make a come back!

Yup. Even after the try. I still fancy Fiji tonight though!

They did themselves proud. But Australia are going to rip them to shreds