Child didn't miss much tonight. The abuse he received was shocking, even those in the hospitality were way out of order.
Cas deserved the victory, the result had nothing to do with the referee whatsoever.

Yep, pretty much.

Of the games I've seen him ref He's had 1 or 2 good games over the last few seasons, but if you put it into context that most referee's only have 1 or 2 bad games in the same period it says a lot about the man.

He appears to try too hard to take the mantle of Gansen/Silverwood, where the game is all about the ref!

I recall St Helens coach Daniel Anderson telling the RFL that he didn't want the inept Ian Smith to referee his team ever again....and I'm sure he didn't until after Anderson had gone back home.

How about that for influence ?

Hicks has improved exponentially since the end of last/start of this season. He has simply got better and better while Child seems to have found his (substandard) level and stuck to it.

I cringe every time I see Child's name next to "Referee" on the team sheet and continue to wonder how and why he referee's in the top flight.

If it is because that there's no-one better then it's a very sad state of affairs indeed.

That's the answer and it is indeed.

I think Millward complained as well, we had about an 80% failure rate under Ian Smith for some reason.