I don't think it was even that bad a decision - he saw that the defenders had committed early and it left a gap to go through, and backed himself to get there.

...

He'd looked and seen who was outside him before he got the ball. He could still have passed before the gap closed. Instead he backed himself against a 2 on 0. I'd call that bad decision making.

This was part of my degree. Basically, your conscious brain can make reasoned decisions, but it's slow and can only handle a limited amount of information. The solution is that you teach yourself automated reactions to particular sets of stimuli. This enables you to respond sensibly to things much more quickly and with lower cognitive load.

Where it can go wrong is when two similar-looking situations need different responses and either one response pattern is much stronger than the other or your conscious brain is distracted by something else. Or where the rules change and a situation that needed one response in the past needs a different one now.

In Jones's case, he saw and reacted to a situation where last season there was a positive outcome almost all the time - either you score, you get a 5m scrum or you tie in defenders. This season, there's a negative outcome if the defenders can hold you up. He - like most other players - hasn't yet had the chance to train his brain that the percentages are different now and you need to be more certain of your gap to go for it.

One factor we haven't considered so far (unless I missed something) is communication. Is there a role for communication in these situations, like the player outside calling/screaming "outside" or whatever, or is the crowd noise too strong to allow that. Having only played in front of 750/1000 max, I sadly have no experience of the big stage.

I still think that singling him out based on making a 50/50 decision is harsh. We may have knocked -on if the pass had been made.
1. Marcus got 10 minutes on the naughty step. Tigers scored during this period. He also missed a conversion which would have given us a draw.
2. Andre chose not to kick the ball into touch - which directly led to a try.
3. Dommers knocked on a cross field kick which would have been a walk in.
Why are we not talking about these incidents.

Sure, I'm not trying to pillory him. But it was a bad mistake in a close relatively low scoring game.

Marcus's yellow was a very stupid thing to do.

Andre should have made touch.

If it's the one I'm remembering I think the kick to Dommers was slightly strong.

This was part of my degree. Basically, your conscious brain can make reasoned decisions, but it's slow and can only handle a limited amount of information. The solution is that you teach yourself automated reactions to particular sets of stimuli. This enables you to respond sensibly to things much more quickly and with lower cognitive load.

Where it can go wrong is when two similar-looking situations need different responses and either one response pattern is much stronger than the other or your conscious brain is distracted by something else. Or where the rules change and a situation that needed one response in the past needs a different one now.

In Jones's case, he saw and reacted to a situation where last season there was a positive outcome almost all the time - either you score, you get a 5m scrum or you tie in defenders. This season, there's a negative outcome if the defenders can hold you up. He - like most other players - hasn't yet had the chance to train his brain that the percentages are different now and you need to be more certain of your gap to go for it.

I think your degree has led to you massively over-thinking this,  ironically enough. Jones made a decision that would've been a terrible one last season as well. Blowing a guaranteed try with a 2-man overlap by going for glory yourself is not excused because of the potential for a 5m scrum or tying in defenders. It's still bombing a try by making a terrible decision.

There is absolutely no way the change in laws has anything to do with this - if you choose to go it alone for the harder chance of scoring versus passing to the unmarked people outside you who'll walk in then you done messed up big time

I think Jones did exactly what he is trained to do, he waited for the outside defender to commit then straightened, 9 out of 10 times that's a walk in try. If anything it is good defending, as the outside defender actions led to Jones taking the inside and saved the try, had the defender not stepped out or stepped out further it's 100% a try.

All the being said it was 2 on 1 outside and a pass (if successful) is also a walk.

Steward didn't commit to anything - he's covering the outside backs and stops drifting when Jones starts running, which is what the attacking player is waiting for so he can pass. Instead he did exactly the wrong thing and gambled on beating the inside player. As soon as he got the ball he tucked it under his right arm and ran for the line. People are trying too hard to excuse a bad mistake here, it's nothing to do with law changes, psychology, or the actions of Steward; the second Jones got that ball it's clear he wanted to try and score himself and ignored better options.

It is just one error, and I'm not looking to pillory the guy, but the attempts to explain it away are really strange! It really is as simple as "Huw Jones got the ball, thought he could score on his own and was wrong, and it was particularly galling as a simple pass to his outside man as soon as Steward was on his heels would've led to a simple score"

Maybe you aren't - but, the fact is that there is a whole thread on him.
It starts with comments like - "get refund" and "premiership cup level"

Yes, and I argued with the guy who started it :-)

To quote Dolly Parton, "if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain".

I have no idea why I have just written that.