I though the referee did a very good job today.

In fact, today, I witness an amusing virus spreading amongst our fekkwitts. During the 2nd half, as our display became more inept and the home supporters started getting frustrated, their ire started to be directed to the ref and they started shouting offside. It started with a few then a few more then a few more. The more who shouted it, the more who believed it to be true. Thing is, the lad and I were paying specific attention and the ref was doing an excellent job taking the Crusaders players back but that reality didn't interfere with the supporters baying for blood.

I just knew the fekkwitts would come away bleating about the ref and convinced he'd done a bad job. Rugby League supporters are a weird bunch. Just weird.

G1....I aint a fekwit. The ref missed a few things today. A blatant grapple on Delaney in front of us, for example. I also felt that he should have stopped the clock earlier than he did when Celtic were 'timewasting'.

I thought the Ref had a decent game and for his 1st SL game he did well.
He missed a few things but nothing worse than happens at most games every week.

You can't blame the ref when we let too many tries in without a hand being laid on the try-scorer.

He did miss offsides but there again from what I saw it worked both ways. Thought the lad had a good game and was consistent in his decisions.
Hope he gets some more games in SL.

Tbh, i'm bored of the calls for offside from the SS. Dont people realise that the refs take them back a big 10 (normally about 11 meters) to compensat for the players taking a step forward? Visually for the fan its wrong but it helps to keep the game flowing and we're not being pinged for offside every 2 seconds.

The same thing happens at most grounds though.

Well done to the Crusaders for taking advantage of the referee. I believe they tried it on and got away with what they could get away with. In all the years of watching rugby, I have always noticed that a conversion follows a try. So, why the big gap in bringing on the kicking tee after one of their tries? He didnt stop the clock for over a minute on that one. He also after the last try, only stopped the clock after 53 seconds, yet when Delaney went into touch whilst trying to catch Sinfields wayward pass he stopped the clock straight away?

I do believe with a different referee there may have been a different outcome. Crusaders game plan worked.

Indeed, its true though.

I to some extent agree with the opinion of whomever wrote the match report for the YEP online. He/she said that Hicks did okay and that "He let the Crusaders stand a metre offside, but the Rhinos should have been good enough to deal with that and he at least tried to keep the game flowing."

We watched another well coached Noble side push the limits of the game, there was some shocking and blatant forward passes from both sides but that is what the touch judges are supposed to police. Despite what SS might say in his report the pass out of acting half-back from White to put Peek over was a good yard forward BUT to be honest it probably would have made no difference, as he would have probably scored anyway off a legal pass.

Hicks does need to get some confidence in ref'ing Super League games but that will only come by him... ref'ing Super League games!!! This was highlighted by his failure to do anything at all when Schifcofske deliberately kicked the spare ball in towards the play. It was without doubt a Leeds penalty and probably was worthy of a binning (& most certainly would have been if Mr Ganson had been in the middle). If the Crusaders had gone down to 12 men for the last 10 minutes the result may have been different, but once again we can not rely on good or bad ref's decisions winning the game for us, we need to take control and win the game ourselves.

Poor performance by the Rhinos, good performance by the Crusaders and an average performance from Mr Hicks, sums it up for me. The best team won on the day.

To defend Herr Webmeister, he hasn't done the match report.