..where the referee has much influence on the result ?

Golf - the best player wins.
Football - he might give a pen away
Tennis - no chance
Horse racing - no chance
Formula 1 - nope

So. The 'best' sport to watch is influenced more by the ref than any other sport ? Can anyone say that this sport isnt ?

Fans losing interest by the droves, but the suits at Red Hall think all is rosy. But they always will.

It is influenced more because there's so many decisions to make.

To break it down, in football, referees only blow their whistle for free kicks, goals and the kick-offs. Much of the work is done by the linesmen who call offsides and adjudicate on whether the ball crosses the line etc.

In rugby league, you have to watch the ruck, play-the-ball, the defensive line. Offside, high tackles, dangerous tackles, knock-ons, forward passes, holding down. etc etc.

The referee has an influence in most of the game.

What a ridiculous supposition.
Referees / umpires / judges alter outcomes of every sport.

I can't believe i am being drawn in to such a specious argument.

By the the appearance of your clipped sentences, you seem tired and emotional.
Re-appraise your post in the full light of day

Sadly the RFL think that it is new stadiums that will bring back the interest of the fans, hence it is old grounds that are pushing them away. We all know this to be absolute rubbish. The reality is that it is the RFL's own bent actions and decisions at Redhall that fans have had enough of and can no longer accept. Hence many have lost faith in the game.

The icing on the cake then comes in the form of referee's and the decisions they make and don't make, and the teams which they seem to favour and those who they don't. For many fans it is hard to live with week in week out.

I think refs and officials can have influence in every sport.

However from a neutrals point of view Silverwood screwed Cas in the first half last night, should have be 12-12 at half time.

It was hardly a close game for the referee to have such a big influence on!

Jon Wells doesn't share your view - he said at half time he thought Silverwood got both decisions correct. I think it's fairly safe to call him a neutral...

I wasn't particularly meaning last nights game. It's rare you can go to any game without the referee determining and changing the momentum of sections of the game. Other games and sports flow and in general the best team, horse, car will win. Does the best team always win in RL ?

'They' say that decisions balance themselves out over the year, but again that's not really the point.

and what did jon wells say about the leeds try which was clearly forward to make it 0 - 8. ten with the conversion.

Maybe at full-time yes. But at 4-0 when we scored, it would have been 4-4 or 6-4 to us. And then we had another try disallowed at 10-0, which would have brought it 10-4/10-6.

The complexion of the game changed from that point forward.

As a neutral I definitely thought the game was altered entirely by those poor decisions. They would have been less offensive if Leeds themselves hadn't scored off tries that actually were forward. Cas's momentum was wrecked by bad decision making in the first half.

A saints fan talking about other teams scoring from forward passes is a fooking wind up!

I don't know how you have the cheek?

All teams score from forward passes at some point. Anybody stating otherwise is burying their head in the sand. What is an issue is the fact that some teams get away with it more often than not; not just that but the rules aren't applied evenly with refereeing so inconsistent across the board that some times are being penalised more where others aren't.

Yesterday's game was just one example of that - you can't give a 50/50 call against Cas and then Leeds do the same and get away with it. It should be fair and both tries should be pulled up or neither.

I was speaking to a friend some time ago and we were talking about attracting new supporters to the game and he came out with what i class as a very honest answer he stated "I could bring a friend to a superleague game on week 1 and he could come away having thoroughly enjoyed the experience, then on week 2 take him to another game and he will see a game where players are getting penalised for things they got away with the week before and the things that were penalised the week before they will get away with on week 2, how confusing is that for someone who is trying to learn the game" and i honestly think he has a point one week the refs have a one directive and the next week they forget that one and start pulling something else.

So far over the last 8 days we have had a ref who couldn't hear his touch judge (who should have stood his ground and stayed where he was instead of walking towards the ref) say a player had score from an offside position, a ref who on 3 occassions struggled to count to 6 then on another counted 7, then last night a ref who pulled for forward passes that didn't exist and let blatant forward passes go. Is there any wonder the players heads go down????

We have the respect policy within rugby league, - I want to know when the ref's will start respecting the players??????