Was the 13-4 penalty count against Ireland last Sunday an accurate reflection of what happened on the pitch?

59% YES 41% NO

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Your Reaction

• It was so frustrating watching the game. It was absolutely appalling by Ireland and we are our own worst enemy. We outscored an ordinary French team by 3 tries to one and lost and outscored a very poor Scottish team by 3 tries to nil and barely won. O'Driscol said after the French game that we needed to learn. Well on Sunday's evidence we didn't? I don't know what Declan Kidney is doing. He needs to knock some discipline into this idiotic team. We gave away a penalty on average every 5.7 minutes and it was the worst display of unprofessionalism I've ever seen from a so called professional team. The lineout is also a joke. Robinson claimed Scotland got themselves back into the game. Rubbish! We got Scotland back into the game. They were awful and offered nothing in the entire match except a decent goal kicker yet nearly won. Ireland kept giving away stupid penalties in the breakdown. They needed to learn to let Scotland have the ball as the Scots were going nowhere. Ireland sort it out!
  Phil  Ireland
• dont thing so. An example. Late on in the game Heaslip was tackled by one of the Scottish back rows (red headgear). Scot lay on the tackled player, didnt release the player thus preventing Heaslip from releasing the ball. Penalty to Scotland. It should have been the other way. There were others. Romain Poite in the Italian game continually pinged the Irish front row when it was obvious Perugini was the main culprit. While I think Owens is one of the better refs around there seems to be a focus on how Ireland play the game. The last three games, with three different refs, from three different countries have blown us off the park. We are either cheatin like hell (and deserve more yellow cards as Robinson suggested) or there is an over examination on how we (above all other teams) go about the game.
  zack lee wright  Ireland
• Yes, Ireland was far too careless in giving away those penalties and we could have won by a much greater margin.
  Conor Brian  Ireland
• The irish team had the run of the scots all day and then went to sleep for the last half hour rather than going for more tries. Some of the calls made by the ref were ridiculous and a good deal should have gone the other way. But on top of that, kidney put a sense of panic in the players by bringing on so many subs st the one go and this hardly encouraged them. They will, I believe, still pleasantly surprise everyone in the last two rounds of the 6 nations.
  Gus  British Indian Ocean Territory
• YAWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! more rugger questions. Editor nobody cares about this dull minority sport. NEW QUESTION PLEASE!!!
  alan  Ireland
• Good question Editor ! Keep the rugby questions coming---the less Soccer & GAA the better
  Fred  Ireland
• ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ dear god Editor can we have a question about a sport people in this country care about not this god awful so called sport. The irish rugby team is useless and nobody really cares.
  paul  Ireland
• Sad to see so many clowns still denigrating rugby -- I have been to over 50 AllIreland finals & Hurling is my first love but Rugby still does it for me -- as to the match ... Jamie heaslip is good at giving interviews & Tweeting etc but can he explain why he gave away those two penalties ( 6Pts) & Sean O'Brien handling in the ruck was plain stupid -- both palyed well otherwise . Denis Leamy "found" himself offside but I dont think it was intentional & the penalty against Paul O'Connell was a bit harmlessif proper. I am largely at a loss as to the award of penalties for "not retreating" as the ref must have seen the numerous offences of this nature by Scotland. Giving a penalty against Ireland when the Scottish spoiled our ball with a try looking certain finally convinced me that I know nothing about refereeing standards in rugby as I thiought Nigel Owens knew what he was doing -- bring back Mr Poite . With a good referee we could be winning by more but please cut out the silly errors
  Michael Sheridan  Ireland
• Obviously not, because Nigel Owen made a host of errors - admitedly not all his mistakes were penalty offences but his overall performance was appalling. The number of missed forward passes (while he denied us a try for an imaginary one), crooked lineouts, crooked scrum feeds and a Scottish knock on he ridiculously said sent went backwards (that lead directly to a penalty against Ireland seconds later.) added up to a bad day at the office. The not releasing penalties he awarded against us were hard to judge from a distance but the Scots seemed at least as prone to not letting go of the tackled player and two of the penalties for hands on the floor were just plain wrong. All in all we have been badly served by the refs this year; Poite is hopeless, Pearson doesn't do offside and Owens had a really off day. Of course Kidney and the boys are engaged in a PR campaign but privately - and I hope in dialogue with the RFU - they are entitled to hopping mad.
  Gerry  United Arab Emirates
• Still amazed by some of the vitriolic comments posted by some readers who obviously have some serious prejudices against rugby. I mean, why bother logging in whenever there's a rugby related poll to make some bitter irrelevant remark? No doubt such comments are made by GAA and/or soccer fans who are more than a little insecure about certain shortfalls in their own sports and therefore feel bitter about the media attention given to Ireland's premier and only world class sporting team. Lets not forget that the Irish rugby team is the only truly all Ireland team in both name and substance. These men are sporting gladiators willing to put their bodies in serious physical danger in all out battle on the pitch. However when the final whistle blows they are also gentlemanly and honourable in a way not seen in any other field sport codes. The GAA for all its undoubted greatness and popularity, is still insular and parochial. It is the sport of anti-British colonialism, and while that might have been relevant back in 1880, it is out of date now. As for soccer, where do I begin? Overpaid, undereducated, spoilt brat mercenary players, who seem to spend all their time gambling, boozing, cheating on their wives and shooting interns with air rifles. When they're on the pitch they behave like a bunch of sissies, falling about the place whenever someone touches against them. Oh and lets not forget the hooligan element that accompanies it almost everywhere. I rest my case.
  Get Real  Ireland