Not having been there I can't possibly comment on whether the penalties were warranted or not...but a 20-5 penalty count is terribly lopsided in any game....and having watched too many GPS games at Joeys over the years it seems that Joeys do very well at Hunters Hill when it comes to lopsided penalty counts.
That's all in the eye of the beholder I suppose. I remember when Joeys were in their pomp, especially when Kurtley was there, that the Joeys faithful used to howl that the ref was penalising their team too much to square things up for the other team.
I thought that was a nonsense as are claims the other way. I remember some things that went their way, especially one against Riverview, but I can remember just as many against Joeys. No Joeys opponent will agree, but that is to be expected.
I don't know that the penalty count mentioned was correct or not, but even if it was, there was a logical reason for it. Scots strong point was making long runs and there weren't many Joeys lads there to infringe at the end of things. On the other hand Joeys did pick and goes all afternoon like it was a long training drill (maybe it was) and the Scots lads struggled a bit stopping them legally and near the line they didn't seem to try too hard. I recall that Scots were pinged a few times in the scrum too.
That is a generalisation, but it gives the vibe of the game. People might rebut that by saying fair enough, but so many more penalties against Scots?
Joeys supporters would counter by asking - even if it was wrong the referee thought it was right, so how come no Scots player was binned? Even if it should have been only 3 times as many - or twice as many - why did they keep 15 players on the park? And would we not have scored more tries if the count was even, which would have meant they didn't kill our ball so much in promising situations?
And there would be counter-counters and so on and questions about whether we were watching the same game - the next comment sillier than the one before it. Nobody would prove anything, except to themselves.
[Incidentally, I am not such a supporter. I gave up whingeing about referees a long while ago, but I do analyse their decisions in pro rugby sometimes. I think all referees do the best they can. Like players, some are better than others, and some are worse than others.]
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