The reason referee was right to stop Goneva in his tracks
the game. They moved the ball from the right side of field to the left, where Collins attempted to run on the outside of Danny Cipriani, even though Cipriani had a nice angle on him.
But just as Cipriani closed in, Collins disappeared out of his eyeline. It is not the “Kingsholm triangle”. Collins had slid to the floor. He knew Cipriani’s swing of the arm and shoulder would be above him and Cipriani’s momentum would move him beyond Collins’s channel. The canny winger bounced back up and ran 60 yards down field.
The law is clear that the major principle is that: “The game is played only by players on their feet.” But there is no voluntary tackle law like there is in rugby league. There is nothing that says Collins cannot avoid being tackled by sliding to ground. But Cipriani would not be allowed to tackle Collins as he was on the floor, so he was unable to do anything. Collins has found a loophole.
It doesn’t get any easier for referees. They now need to be aware of players on the defensive side who were looking to turn ball over but, when cleaned out, are not
Cipriani has taken his Wasps playbook, cut, copied and pasted it into cherry and white colours
afraid of “going with” the cleaner and allowing themselves to be “taken” five metres away and in the process fall over like Sergeant Elias, aka Willem Dafoe, in Platoon. Some other pointers from week one.
Stick your cash on Alex Lewington being leading try-scorer this season. He scored hatfuls for London Irish at the wrong end of the table last season and will score bucketfuls for Saracens at the other end. Leicester’s defensive disaster proved that, as a defender, if you want to keep jumping out of the line chasing big hits and fixing the problem on your own, then you will get torn asunder. Overdrifting and overcommitting, biting in, poor spacings. You name it, they did it.
Cipriani has taken his Wasps playbook with him, cut, copied, and pasted it into cherry and white colours and carried on where he left off. Decoys in front of him, options outside him, and he picks you off.