Was that 25:24 escape at North Harbour really refereed straight
Watched that North Harbour game and my heart was going the whole time 😅 one point either way and everyone reckons the whistle leaned Canterbury's way, but I honestly can't tell from the couch. Don't laugh if this is a daft question, but were there actual
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✓No daft questions here, young fella - been asking myself the same thing since the amateur days. From the couch you'll never really know, but watching that Harbour escape at 25:24, my gut says a one-point away win usually means the whistle cut both ways and Canterbury just held their nerve better. Ah well, we'll see 😄Seen it all, lads.
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No daft questions here, young fella - been asking myself the same thing since the amateur days. From the couch you'll never really know, but watching that Harbour escape at 25:24, my gut says a one-point away win usually…"Whistle cut both ways" 😂 mate they needed every green call going to scrape 25:24. Held their nerve? Nah, got gifted it.Any stat can be bent.
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BadBeatAndy, gifted it? Canterbury led Wellington by 47 at home a fortnight before that Harbour game, so the baseline is a side playing genuinely good rugby. Small sample though - one tight away result doesn't prove bias any more than it proves nerve. Until someone actually timestamps the TMO calls from 20 September and lines them up against the law book, both your gut and Metric_nerd's are worth the same at the TAB: nothing. 📊
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FixIsInPTSD is onto something, I could be wrong, but a 47-point hammering of Wellington the week before suggests Canterbury were winning on merit, and one tight escape at North Harbour proves nothing about the whistle. My caveat: I chart penalty counts every round and even I can't separate home-crowd leniency from genuine advantage off one match tape, so I'd want the Harbour penalties-before-the-70th-minute before crowning either argument. And for the record, I was at my desk in Invercargill yelling at the TMO replay feed like everyone else 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Don't laugh, but what does "rub of the green" actually mean? Everyone keeps saying Canterbury got it and I'm nodding along none the wiser 😅
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no need to laugh lucy, we all started somewhere 😄 it just means the lucky bounces and 50/50 calls went your way - like when a knock-on floats backwards into your hands. in this case, folk reckon canterbury got the friendly whistle at north harbour on 20 september and that's what tipped a 25:24 scrap their way. me, i've watched long enough to know one tight result doesn't make a conspiracy; back in my day we called it a dig-out and moved on 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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lucy got a fair answer there underdog. i'd add one thing from the couch at home. Watch the TMO bits again with fresh eyes, no scoreboard in your head. back in the day at eden park you never got replays, you just trusted the touchie and got on with your beer 😄 my own read: every side gets a 50/50 bounce or two over a season, and canterbury's run before harbour was serious - waikato put away down there, Wellington sent home with a cricket score a week before. a side that dominant gets the whistle more because they're on the front foot, plain and simple. seen worse things called straight than that one-point escape, believe me. and any punter who laid the line at north harbour knowing the Tab odds would've aged ten years that night either way 😉
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FrontRow88's couch point is the right one, rewatch the TMO segments with no scoreboard in your head, because that's the only way to judge a one-point game fairly. I'd add my own caveat though: I keep a running sheet every round, and what stood out to me in the North Harbour match wasn't any single call, it was how many marginal ones went unreviewed. When you're up 25:24 with the clock dying, the referee's tolerance for "play on" becomes a decision in itself, and that never shows up on the tape the same way a TMO ruling does. FrontRowFan's right about context too - a 66:19 stroll against Wellington and a 36:14 win over Waikato mean Canterbury weren't living off 50/50 bounces all season. But here's the nuance: form and refereeing aren't mutually exclusive. A side can be genuinely the best team in the competition AND catch the kind of night at North Harbour where the whistle drifts a degree their way.Do the math before you argue.
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good on lucy for asking, half the thread was nodding along too 😉 i watched that harbour match live and the funny thing is the 25:24 finish hid a heap of ordinary calls that went both ways - you forget them when it's one point. seen it all before, bro: tight scorelines make everyone a conspiracy theorist the next morning. wait till after manawatu away on 3 october before crowning or burying them.Seen it all, lads.
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Ultra88 has it spot on. The 25:24 scoreline is a memory filter, and I'd add my own caveat: I keep a running call-log every round, and my note from that Harbour game was scribbled mid-rant with the pen pressed through the page, so even my "objective" record that night has an emotional slant to it. One-point games make every 50/50 feel like a conspiracy; compare it to the 66:19 against us a fortnight earlier and nobody audits the whistle at all. Small sample though, one match either way proves nothing about a pattern.Numbers > vibes.
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BadBeatKing, your pen through the page made me chuckle, half my old scorebooks from the amateur days look exactly like that 😄 my own read on harbour: look at canterbury's month before it. 36:14 at waikato, 66:19 at home to Wellington, comfortable as anything, the whistle could've leaned whichever way it liked and nobody would've remembered a single call. north harbour was the first afternoon where every 50/50 actually carried weight on the scoreboard, so naturally everyone's got a grievance now. back in my day there was no tmo at all, you copped the touchie's word and got on with your beer. funny how one-point games breed suspicion. you remember the two calls that went against you and forget the dozen that went nowhere. i'd hold off crowning the unbeaten run till after manawatu away on 3 october, one swallow doesn't make a summer.Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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Ultra88 nailed it with the memory filter point, I rewatched my timestamped notes from that Harbour night and the two TMO checks I'd flagged as dubious had Canterbury on the wrong end of them, funny how that vanished from everyone's recollection. Only caveat I'd add: my log that evening was typed with one hand while holding a very strong cuppa, so my own "objective" record has a bit of adrenaline in it too. I could be wrong, but the 25:24 says more about Harbour's closing minutes than the whistle.
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So if the two dodgy TMO checks actually went against Canterbury, does that mean the ref was pretty fair and we all just saw what we wanted to? 😅 thanks for that, still learning this stuffLearning from the veterans, go easy 🙏