Laidlaw's postmatch comments about Romain Poite suggest he's not Scotland's favourite ref
Greig Laidlaw took a swipe at referee Romain Poite after Scotland's Six Nations defeat to Ireland at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Conor Murray, Jacob Stockdale and Keith Earls scored tries as the defending champions responded to their opening loss to England with a hard-fought 22-13 victory.
Sam Johnson scored his first international try in a breathless first half and Laidlaw kicked eight points, but Ireland showed their experience to grind Scotland down after the break.
Captain Laidlaw admitted Scotland were guilty of too many handling errors and also felt French official Poite did not do Gregor Townsend's side any favours.
The scrum-half told BBC Sport: "It [Scotland's errors] certainly doesn't help against a good team like Ireland.
"Frustrating things as well, Romain Poite picked us up in the middle of the field when Sean O'Brien has ripped the ball out and he's given a knock-on and it's right in front of him.
"He doesn't seem to like us, Romain. He refereed us against South Africa as well and we don't seem to see eye-to-eye. We're not going to blame him, we look at ourselves and we give credit to Ireland."
Laidlaw added: "We are frustrated and disappointed with a lot of things in our performance in terms of a few soft moments allowed Ireland to score, you've got to give credit them, they took their opportunities."
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I don't listen to Nigel Farage. Really not sure where you'd be getting that from. Maybe you should stick to responding to what I've actually said, rather than speculating about my sources.
I'm not sure what you think Putin is going to do. He'll probably conquer Ukraine, but its taken him a long time, and cost him a lot of soldiers. Hitler overran France in a matter of weeks and then started bombing Britain. At this rate Putin might make it to Paris by 2080? I think he'll give up long before then!
I don't see what Stalinist language policy has to do with any of what we're talking about. De-Ukrainization took place in the 1930s, but the genocide of Palestine is taking place in 2025. If your argument is that the invasion of Ukraine is part of a longer history of Russian suppression of Ukraine then you might have a point, but that really just underlines the key difference between Hitler and Putin; Hitler wanted to dominate as much area as possible and so posed a threat to all of Europe, whereas Putin wants to force the assimilation of those who have historically been within the Russian sphere of influence, so only poses a threat to eastern europe and central asia.
"Read and think for yourself."
What would you recommend I read? On the genocide of Palestine I've found Patrick Wolfe's "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native" and Sai Englert's "Settlers, Workers, and the Logic of Accumulation by Dispossession" especially useful - they might disabuse you of the notion that what we are witnessing is an "authoritarian criminal syndicate" fighting a nation! - rather Zionist genocide is a largely democratic process, arising from a structure of settler colonialism which has no analogue in Ukraine.
Go to commentsAnd they're really playing good rugby,beating every team because they can squat with heavy weights. Not
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