I agree mate, and i have been many widnes matches and thought he against my team.But if your well better and thrash a team you let it go.It is when it a tight game like the other day.Anyway thanx for the good luck and hope meet you in the grand final.Hopefully we are turning the corner now as we have been woeful this year.

I cannot think of any ref's in our league wou you could say are good.

You get a different perspective watching games at home on tv when you can hear them chatting with the players, for example Hick's comes across ok as he has a laugh with the players, but he still comes up with some dodgy rulings.

Childs, Halloran, Leahy & Laughton are dire.

Merrick can have the odd decent game, but no consistancy.

Hewer is poor whether live or watching on TV

Put-in or Feeding the Scrum
6. (a) The ball shall be put into the scrum from the
Referee’s side by holding it in a horizontal
position with a point in each hand and rolling it
along the ground [iinto the tunnel [/iformed by the
opposing front row forwards. =red(not second rows legs)
(b) The ball shall not be put in before the scrum has
been correctly formed.
(c) There shall be no undue delay in putting the ball
into the scrum.
(d) The player putting the ball in shall not hesitate or
dummy and after putting it in he shall immediately
retire behind his own pack of forwards.

Other players
7. The [uscrum half of the team not having the put-in shall
retire immediately behind his last row of forwards[/u.
All other players outside the scrum, other than the
scrum half putting the ball in, shall retire five metres
or more behind the last row of forwards of their
respective teams in the scrum and shall remain so
until the ball has emerged correctly from the scrum.

=redSo he should be no where near the back of his opposition scrum

In all fairness i don't know why we bother having scrums these days because they're a farce. Plus how many times does the ref stop play on a scrum and make them do it wrong again. It's a joke.

I was suprised to see Griffin (no relation) of the Giants is up before the RFL for a grapple tackle.

Good god, presumably he must have nearly screwed the players head off as you see them happen all the time but nothing is done about it.

Koe Love's whole tackling technique (unless he's already caught them with a swinging arm) is to grab them round the throat! Nothing was done about this on Sunday (just an example, im not bothered about who beat who)

I am sorry Soldierboy, but you are not strickly correct there. We have been to games where we have well beaten the opposition and discussed the poor standard of the refereeing.

Poor refereeing does not always result in loosing a game, but there are some poor inconsistant refereeing displays, both in our league and in Superleague. I do go to some Superleague games and I watch ALL that are on SKY and the interpretation is different week on week.

It's the scrum that annoys me. Contest it or don't bother. However, I've seen penalties given for contesting the scrum. It's a joke and either scrapping or enforcing.

Match Officials standards have dropped since Stuart Cummings has become boss of them. We all make mistakes and I accept they will miss something. However its the way often Referees are so consistant especially in SL with the top teams who get away with alot whilst other teams are penalized for the same thing.
I have seen games at both Champonship & SL level where there has been alot of high tackles and laying on-yet one side it seems to be OK for one side but the other not. Or where something will happen right before the eyes of a TJ or Ref but they just seem to ignore it but then a few minutes later they pull a team for something nobody has seen! The Leeds & Bradford game last year is a prime example of the shocking mistakes by Match Officials
And Stuart Cummings when a Ref/Match Official is criticized straight away jumps to the defence of his man instead of properly looking at the reason why. There is a problem as Terry Matterson, Justin Morgan etc this year have openly criticized officials. Instead of Cummings looking in to why people have a poor opinion he just makes excuses or tries to justify there reasons.
The age and experience of some of these officials is quite frankly a joke. Most are young lads who have never played the game at a decent level in the amateur game let alone pro game and could be the reason why they seemingly have little idea what is going on. I would love to see that arrogant knob Stuart Cummings leave and have somebody efficient in place.

I think they've simply struggled to keep with the pace of the game. Add to this the plethora of rule changes that they've had to cope with and you then understand that it's that side of the game that hasn't advanced. I still think they do an OK job - my main gripe is the inconsistencies during the game. What a thankless task it is though. Imagine, EVERY week being booed and barracked by one set of fans at least. It comes with the territory i suppose but i couldn't stomach it to be honest.

Cue a job for you??

No time and not living in UK and no interest to go back likely rules me out! I will do a Refs course when I retire though and have reffed odd games in the past. Not as easy as people think but main thing is to stay calm, stick to your decisions and then I asked people what to work on- for me it was to make my signals with ht e hand/Arm more visable.

I agree, while SL may use mainly FT ref's, we've still got p/t ones ref'n games with teams containing 6 or 7 full time pro's, plus players with SL experience. The game is far too quick for them & they receive very little help from ageing or far too young tj's

Sorry the wording came out wrong.What i meant by thrashing teams by top play, because you are much better than your opposition.For example if you are up by 40 points and the odd decision is bad against you, i just not get as upset.Yes consistency is a problem and i look fwd to more battles with fax.See you in grande final i hope and at the stobart stadium.I hope you bring a few fans aswell.

Just seen a "knock-on" in the York v Oldham game. [size=150It wasn't a knock on - it went backwards[/size. What are the referees being told? If you lose the ball - either way is it now a knock on?

Standards definitely dropped when Stuart Cummings took over from Greg McCallum. He gets very defensive whenever it is mentioned that one of his referees might have got it wrong.

Barrie Mac hits the nail on the head in his book where he says that he thinks sometimes the referees read the rulebook on the way to the game and go 'oh I'd forgot about that rule' and then spend the game penalising people for it. I'd go as far to say that they do it in game, things like not-playing it properly frustrate me because it could be given so many times during the game. You get the feeling that they think 'I haven't looked at the play the ball for a bit, wait he didn't play it, penalty!'

The call was wrong, but at least he isnt just caning one side!!!!!

Not good enough.
What has he seen? Certainly NOT the ball going forward. That ball was more backwards than Styler - what on earth has the referee seen? He's seen a lost ball and just lazily blown for a knock on. Rubbish. Just rubbish.

Yep - that's what frustrates me. I know they're human and i feel that it's impossible to police every rule in the book for 100% of game time but there must be scope for sorting out the inconsistencies. Dare i say - two match officials?

I didn't see the game tonight so it's hard to comment on the knock on incident that you're talking about.

This is the only rule of a knock on:

KNOCK-ON - means to knock the ball towards the opponents’ dead
ball line with hand or arm, while playing at the ball.

It must then either hit one of the following: the ground, a goal post, cross bar or an opponent for it to complete the knock on.

#####################################

Once a player has lost control the only way for it to no longer be a knock on is for him to regain control (either catch the ball or show due control to palm the ball in a controlled manner back towards his own line or to kick it) before it then hits the ground, post, bar or opponent.

Now should the player not regain control in the manner stated above, the knock on starts from the moment control was lost, not the last time he touched the ball. Once that has been established the end of the knock on is where the ball hits the ground, post, bar or opposition. If the end of the knock on is in front of the loss of control it's a knock on. That's it, it doesn't matter if the ball then rolls back, sideways or anything else. It is about whether the ball falling went towards the opposition goal or not. That's what you have to bare in mind when judging a knock on. Hope that helps, although i didn't see the incident so can't judge it against that.

I've been watching this game since 1979. It went backwards in EVERY sense of the word BACKWARDS. Not forward. He was tackled by three players - pushed back towards his own line when the ball came free. Everyone was travelling in a backwards motion. Everyone went backwards. The ball came free and it went backwards. There was no forward momentum in any of that particular play.

Well that does sound like the normal referee/TJ cock up to me.

I'll go and wait in the cupboard with my anorak until i'm needed again.

I do think that you should be the FaxFans.co.uk Statto.

Reverse momentum rule?

Othewise known as the 'Jacko' - in tribute to the recently departed.