Of course they beat us fair and square, not sure why everyone wants to blame the refs. Lets be honest, the secondary (Sherman especially) get away with a lot of contact every game that should be called. The refs were obviously not going to let these guys get out of hand. Sherman has the biggest mouth in football, and this was a heated rivalry, I'm sure the refs met before the game and decided to not let things get out of hand, which starts with frustration from such things as grabbing and holding. Heck, they threw a 15 yard flag on Whitner for just running his mouth. He didn't stand over one of our guys, or do some stupid celebration, or even touch the football, he just said something. They got Bowman later for a retaliation after one of our guys went after him first. It's not like they didn't call anything on the 49ers either. I also remember a big play negated on a play by their RG Boone for hands to the face. They had 70 yards in penalties, we had 85. Big deal.
Plus, let's face it, we were lucky to be that close. The fact that we held them to FG's on their first two drives - especially after a blocked kick - was great. I for one was glad that Harbaugh decided to kick the FG rather than go for it on 4th and 1 on their second scoring drive. We were lucky that Kaepernick didn't run that in for a TD. He was literally tripped up by his shoeslaces on what looked to be a sure TD run. If you watch the replay that shows the play coming at you, Wagner made a fantastic play on Kapernick's left foot that tripped him up at the last possible second. Plus, Maxwell got an INT when they were in the redzone. It looked like Crabtree ran the wrong route as he was smacking himself in the head and yelling at himself after the play. Looked like he was outside rather than inside on that play. Why Kapernick threw that pass I'll never know.
We had several breaks not go our way, but several that did, and the penalty flags were almost even. We were lucky to have the lead late and decided to make the worst defensive play on the day at the worst possible moment. It happens, but I don't see why we can't beat these guys by 3 touchdowns at home if we meet again. Kaepernick is still nowhere near the player he was last season, Gore (besides that one run) didn't look too special, and we bottled up Davis for most of the game. Boldin had a good game, but between him, Davis, and Crabtree if you're going to let one of them free it has to be Boldin.
We lost fair and square.