Lions to dedicate tour to London victims, says Warburton

I think you are the troll longshanks, theres absolutely no way you shouldn’t know that ruling. Also, even if you don’t think they could have scored a try, they easily would have taken three if all they were concerned with was you perception of how bad they were. So that would only be a 4 point difference in the result. So come on now, think for a bit or stop trolling me, you’re hopeless at it.

He’s a little like Lonergan, his opposite last night, a small and nifty decision making half that suits the situation he had last night best, but if was thrust into big minutes against teams like the Lions, France, or SA, you might be worrying about ball security a lot more.

Proof of the pudding - the vast majority of top All Blacks have stayed out.

Rassie made it clear that the decision was due to financial necessity, not because he wanted his players to get European experience or anything like that.

“I have no doubt we wouldn’t have been able to keep the players in South Africa as we just don’t have the money to. It is reality, and the moment you accept reality and we work with this and we find creative ways around that.”

That’s a direct quote from this very website. He’s a board level director with a full understanding of the finances of the union and the overall strategic state of the game. He knew that the board was financially unable to keep a critical mass of players at home and enough of his fellow directors agreed with him to make the policy change happen despite the compromises on the playing side that he said they had to work around.

The New Zealand situation is very different. A critical mass of top All Blacks has not left and no board member has called for a new policy on financial grounds. It simply isn’t sound logic to say that New Zealand should follow South Africa’s lead because so far it’s been a success for them.

Ending subjective statements with “fact.” is a bit dramatic. Pepper is excellent though.