Quote: St pete "I don't think they deliberately anti any team but sometimes they let certain things go but then don't for the opposition and it gets players, coaches and fans backs up.
They need to be consistent and they are not.
One of the worst refs I've ever seen is Robert Hicks. He Spoils tbe first 15 mins of every game with constant pens
The first 15 mins is when players are fired up and we see some good hard tackling but Hicks takes this away from the game.'"
This, pretty much. I think also, each ref has their own " pet hates", whether ruck speed, offside, forward passes, whatever, and we see these offences policed differently by different refs (consistency, as you point out). I know most coaches emphasise this in pre-match planning, warning their players that this weeks ref is hard or lenient in certain areas. This might appear as bias if a ref is known to allow slow rucks, say, which a particular team might base their game on more than their opponents do.