He was the VR.

To me it wasn't a try...but I wasn't surprised when it was given.

IMO the VR should only be used in cup games and play offs. Regular league rounds where only 2 games have the VR doesn't seem right, but I presume for all clubs (bar Leeds) the cost is prohibitive

So we're stuck with decisions like last night

Another alternative is the Ref makes a decision, and then asks if the VR agrees....like in Union

In the NRL the ref has to give his own view, and the video ref can only change it if there's definite evidence that the on-field ref is wrong. IMO its a good balance, as far too often in the past we've had endless reviews of play by VRs, when its clear that no conclusive evidence exists one way or the other. It also means that refs have been calling try/no try in many cases rather than send every decision to the VR 'just in case'.

Listened to the interview yesterday while working at home, very entertaining. He seems to have enjoyed every minute of playing the game but I suspect if he'd played the game a decade earlier than he did he would have had even more fun.
His comments about the Leeds setup give you confidence that the club is going to be right there at the top for the forseable future. It seems like a great place to work if you bring the right attitude with you.

No worries, I didn't and I trust you understood my reasoning/justification for the Hughes 'no try' decision wasn't entirely a serious comment either.

The ball moved from his outstretched hand to perhaps wrist/lower forearm and Ian Smith appeared to come up with that constituting a knock-on as the re-start IIRC was a scrum ten with Leeds head and feed.

I don't think I agreed with that but what can you do.

Was the hardaker incident answered in the ask the ref twitter session? It was clearly asked and an obviously controversial decision. If it wasn’t answered could we conclude Mr Ganson doesn’t hold a whole lot of confidence in that decision in the cold light of day?

no. it was asked and ignored

It must be great for morale of certain Leeds Rhinos players knowing that the minute you make one mistake your out of the team or given very limited game time, It's amazing how you then see other members in the team that are woefully out of form and guaranteed a shirt.

Thank you George That is exactly the point I have been trying to make

make that 3

Sounds the way to go.

It's embarrasing sometimes how often endless replays are made, studied and studied yet again: there should be a time limit at least.....or just toss a bluddy coin. It's often just as much a lottery.

I think the question that should be asked, is why was Ganson (whose son is on Saints scholarship) the video ref. There were no other games on Monday.

Personally I think he got the decision right, but that is not the issue.

It also struck me listening to that how little control the VR has over what he's seeing. Half of the pointless angles we have to watch seem to be as a result of miscommunication (or whatever) between the VR and whoever is sending his replays to him.

Would it be that hard to train the Refs to be able to work with the replays themselves to speed things up?

I'll pass on the link between Ganson and the St Helens club. We had to suffer Holdsworth re-designated as Kippax so that he could officiate at Leeds games and hand on heart I can't recall him doing us many favours quite the opposite in fact. I felt that was the bigger danger when the 'home town' bar on officials was lifted.

The bar was removed at the start of 2008 - for St Helens it's been a comparatively sp trophy cabinet by their previous high standards since. Probably just one of those quirks. Ganson used to get a lot of big games generally but couldn't officiate in any of St Helens who made plenty of semi and finals and I always [iperceived [/ithe lifting of the bar (as with the swerve employed for Holdsworth) were with him personally in mind.

I agree though that the controller shouldn't occupy the role of video referee (although his predecessor often did likewise - usually in the South of France, nice) as any mistakes that there will inevitably be - and perhaps we saw one on Monday - will undermine his authority to carry out the role of improving standards, IMO.