Rugby Chat

F/T 28-34
No try bonus, but a win with 14 men for a large portion of the game.

Exciting end to the game. Deserved point for Hartpury too. I can understand why Worcester kicked it out while on the attack as that at least ensured a hard fought win, which correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t that the first time Worcester have won at Hartpury?

Yes it is - they did the double over us last season. Only 4 points today, but in my view our best and toughest win of the season. Hartpury thoroughly deserved their point.

Donnyknightfan wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2026 4:12 pm

Kimbo wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2026 3:55 pm Doncaster 31-33 Cov.
FT

Another game where Donny have been robbed by a referee who was out of his depth. The standard of officiating in this league is embarrassing. As soon as Cov scored the last try he couldn’t blow the whistle quickly enough. Having said that why we tried a one-out carry off the last scrum when Coventry were always going to go for the turnover is beyond me - holding on in that situation was criminal. I’d like to see that final passage of play again though, they seemed to get penalties for bugger all but then they did all game so why would he change.

Cov were penalised heavily last week against Blackheath, we couldn't seem to do a thing right. It's just how it goes sometimes.

Agreed re standard of reffing- same at Notts v Bedford, at one point I remarked to my friend it’s Darren Gamage all over again….

Can’t see the issue with the reffing at Donny v Cov. Ref missed a few things on the Cov side as well which I let the lino know about. The penalties at the end were the usual offside/lineout penalties that are the norm when defending in those situations. Thought the booing of the kicker for the last kick was a bit unnecessary.

Given what happened last year it was nice to be on the right side of a last play winning score for a change. Happy supporters coach on the way home.

We had Andy Wigley last week - he and his assistants were appalling. The standard of officiating in this league is generally very poor. I am always so pleased to see Sara Cox as our referee - I know that we are going to see a brilliant performance when she is involved.

Tony_At_Wuss wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2026 9:27 pm We had Andy Wigley last week - he and his assistants were appalling. The standard of officiating in this league is generally very poor. I am always so pleased to see Sara Cox as our referee - I know that we are going to see a brilliant performance when she is involved.

Agreed. Ms Cox is an excellent ref.

Agree Ms Cox is one of the best referees to have officiated at Chinnor.

However, not being a referee I can't say the refereeing in the Champ is bad, all I would say is that some decisions could be communicated a lot clearer.

That said, there are the usual grips of forward passes not being given, crooked feeds at scrums, and line-outs not being straight, but I suspect these non-decisions come from directives from on high rather than refereeing errors........

For me, my main gripe of some of the referees at this level is some of them seem unable to let the game flow. If you watch top level refs, I feel like at scrum time they only award penalties where there has been a clear offense. A scrum being pushed backwards is not, on its own, a penalty. There are often games at the champ where it feels like every scrum ends up as a penalty one way or the other, often before the ball has even been fed in. This in turn leads to a plethora of tries from rolling mauls, which with the current laws are reffed heavily in favour of the attacking team. Hookers are often at or near the top of the try scoring charts in this league and the one below whereas that trend is seen less at prem/international level. I could be wrong but it just feels like on average more technical penalties (i.e. scrum/ruck infringements) are awarded at this level, even though you will get far more high tackles awarded at top level due to the TMOs.