Further to my post earlier, here's another specific about obstruction that the refs seem to ignore ...
[i"Player in possession- The player who is in possession of the ball cannot be guilty of obstruction. He can make use of the goal posts to avoid a tackle, or dodge behind a ruck of his own players or bore a way through his own pack."[/i

The key words here are that the player in possession CANNOT be guilty of obstruction.
Hence, for Ganson to be correct, Peacock would have to have obstructed ... and I don't see how, in playing the ball straightforwardly, he can have obstructed in this sense, any more than a goalpost could be guilty of obstruction.

Ganson wrong .... again.

Let them have top spot. 1st and second are pretty much identical the only difference is, if you both do what you should you don't have club call.

The obstruction rule and its many interpretations is just terrible. It should be a simple rule, but it has somehow been complicated to such an extent that it doesn’t work. It is a rule currently being refereed to a nonsense. It has interpretations that may sound like they work, and may sound consistent in the classroom but it is an absolute nonsense when on the field.

The obstruction rule should be very very simple, has, in the referees opinion, someone on the ball carriers team obstructed a potential tackler.

Clearly Sideshow Steve has got itchy feet now he's not being the centre of attention in the middle any more.

Hence the decision to wire up the VR for sound on the Challenge Cup coverage and his insistence on making at least one bat decision per round.

The scary thing is, he's in charge of developing the next generation of match officials.

Looks like Keiron Cunningham got out at the right time.

Pound to a penny the official explanation on Twitter will be that it was an incorrect play the ball and that Bentham gave the wrong signal.

Anything to cover up their own incompetence.

god ive forgotten the last time i saw a real PtB, so 99%of tries in the last 6 seasons should be chalked off...

Isn't the ruling that they must attempt to play the ball with their foot, even if it doesn't touch as long as they attempt (which peacock did) then it's ok? If they just roll it under without moving their foot to play it then it's incorrect?

The officials also missed 2 blatant offsides near the tryline after a knock on for both widnes and leeds, which even the commentators noticed.

The offciating is far too inconsistent and incompetent and it get's exposed year and after year with little change.

I'm literally in awe that after 15 years we've only had 1/2 f*ck ups in the grand final.

My understanding was that the video ref can't go back and rule on the play the ball. I remeber when the VR was first introduced, they made a ruling on that to prevent the VR going back too far and disallowing otherwise good tries for the play ball.

I think Ganson got it wrong - Peacock can't disappear, he didn't move into anyone, and McShane didn't go through his legs, he went to the side of Peacock, and a defender pushed Peacock over McShane.

I think Ganson was probably a little unsure which way to go with the call, and the slightly dodgy PTB convinced him to go with No Try.

To clear up alot of the mess with VR decisions (particularly 50/50's) we should adopt the NRL approach. The on field ref makes a call on whether they think it's a try or not, and the VR can only overturn that decision if there is conclusive proof the ref is wrong. This way, the 50/50 calls go with the gut instinct of the ref who saw it at normal pace - that to me is a much more natural outcome and also reduces the diffence in standards between games that have a VR present and those that don't. In both cases the on field ref makes the call, simply at televised games, he can have that call verified.

I agree. In the NFL the rule on the field stands unless there is conclusive evidence to overturn it.

The Video Ref can

1. Uphold the refs call (the on field call was conclusively correct)
2. Let the play stand as called (no conclusive evidence to overturn)
3. Overturn it.

It will also make referees get back into the habit of making simple decisions without kopping out to the video ref. On both recent calls that have been wrong against us IMO (this one and the Magic weekend obstruction) there was no justification for the ref to refer the call to the video. Both refs on the field saw exactly what happened and were perfectly placed
.

In the Exiles game, a try was chalked-off for "crossing".
Despite popular belief, there is no rule against "crossing" per se, it is only illegal if the obstructer puts himself in an obstructing position deliberately or if he fails to take advantage of an opportunity to de-obstruct himself.

It's worth repeating that the laws of the game actually point out that the man with the ball cannot be guilty of obstruction.

Hence, the decision in the Exiles game was also incorrect.

It does seem to me that what the refs think are the rules (especially regarding "Obstruction"icon_wink.gif are not the same as the rules as officially codified.

I don't think Peacock did anything wrong at all.

But I do think McShane barged into Peacocks legs to prevent any attempt at the tackle on him. I don't know the rules or the recent interpretations of them, but I don't think what McShane did should be legal.

Why, Peacocks legs effect McShane’s progress towards the line in the same way the effect the tacklers progress towards McShane. What you are proposing would allow the defensive line to get rid of the markers on goal line defence with the player playing the ball acting as an extra defender in the line. There was no reason McShane couldn’t have been tackled other than poor goal line defence.

It looked a try for me but (and forgive me if I've remembered the wrong try here) wasn't there a borderline/possible obstruction in the previous play? I thought Ganson had seen that "obstruction", realised he couldn't go back to the previous play to disallow it so came up with another reason not to give it. Either way still a nonsense decision from Mr Ganson.