What's your view on the examination of Hock's backside that appears to have been carried out by a Saints player. Photos and discussion herehttp://forums.rlfans.com/viewtopic.php?f

A possible red card offence, yet missed by the officials. Just one of a number of things Bentham got wrong that benefited Saints, I'm afraid.

Big difference that you are conveniently overlooking - one (if it happened) was a sneaky, hidden cheapshot, the kind of thing that happens 20 times in every single game of RL that is ever played, that noone has spotted until dissecting the game in minute detail after the event on SkyPlus, and one of 20 similar small-scale niggly offences that would have happened both ways in the same game that similarly went unnoticed and that you can't reasonably expect officials to always be able to spot. The other was a blatant, cynical and very, very open and obvious attempt to injure a player, that everyone in the stadium [iincluding the referee[/i very clearly saw, in a move that is clearly mandated to be a straight red card in the laws of the game, and a move that the game is [isupposedly[/i trying to stamp out vigorously by giving conveniently-timed bans to players with immaculate disciplinary records for very, very, very much lesser offences.

The 2 simply do not compare in any even remote way shape or form. You are dragging the bottom to the very deepest level to be even attempting to use this to defend a blatantly one-eyed and unfair refereeing display and maintain your biased little world view. You simply must try harder.

Read my posts on the matter instead of doing your own editing on them. Wigan were the better team and deserved to win on the balance of play - no arguing that point and I haven't argued it. But you should have had a red card and yellow card when the scores were tight and we were on top which would almost certainly have led to us winning (undeservedly) instead. We didn't get that win purely and simply down to disgustingly inept/corrupt refereeing. This cannot be argued or debated and is simple, pure fact. Get over it.

Quite possibly the most contradictive post I have ever read on rlfans. Where should there have been a red card? whilst the tackle from Micky mc wasn't the best I'm not sure a red card was sufficient... and im sure the RFL will make their mind up on the matter next week, He may very well serve a ban which is no different to other players have been receiving for the same offence. arguably there could have been a yellow for repeat offending, although they where not for the same offence so that is a matter of opinion rather than fact, just like you saying "We didn't get that win purely and simply down to disgustingly inept/corrupt refereeing" is a matter of opinion rather than fact.
It is not a fact that you would have scored had you been given an extra penalty or 2. It took you 3 consecutive penalty's to score your second try in the first place, and your first try was directly from a Wigan error. the scoreline yesterday flattered you imo and on the balance of things, Wigan should have posted more points.

I don't know how you can say Wigan where the better team and deserved to win then go on to say "We didn't get that win purely and simply down to disgustingly inept/corrupt refereeing" in the same paragraph.

Poor effort, and I'm not talking about the attempt at humour with the bottom reference in the last para...

Leaving aside the obvious point that at least the referee sees things that your players do and that the Hock/Wilkin incident should have been highly visible to the touch judge in particular (who only seemed to run on to the field to report infringements by Wigan players...) your posts are now taking on a paranoid air. Do you really think that the RL discplinary committee have it in for St Helens?

You really should watch the game again and look out for Saints forward passes, high shots, ball steals and posterior probing....

u needto get a life.

He was obviously looking when he gave several penalties for offside on the Wigan line! Perhaps you should give him more credit for his peripheral vision. He also has to watch the play-the-ball.

I said I watched him fail to check both ways in nine consecutive possessions. I did NOT say he didn't check once in the entire match. And peripheral vision is not 270 degree vision, which is at least what he'd need to spot an offside player given some of the strange viewing angles he adopts.

I do know what you mean about him not appearing as though he isn't looking sideways. It has annoyed me on many an occasion especially when the opposition seem to be lying way offside at each play-the-ball. He seems to let offsides go for most of the game and then gets a bee in his bonnet and blows for every one like he did on Friday. If only he would glance sideways occasionally it would give the impression that he is keeping an eye on what is happening on the fringes.

With two eyes peripheral vision is actually 180 degrees which is just what is needed for referees looking for offside. You don't really need as much as 270 degs.

The "spear" tackle was by McIlorum, not Hock, and was penalised by Bentham. It was no worse than Laffranchi's last week, which didn't recieve a card but was punished retrospectively, which is what I imagine will happen here, and rightly so.

I am not defending McIlorum here but this is just an observation: Although McIlorum clearly lifted the player I don't think he intended to dump him. As he made the tackle Lima joined in and pushed the player to the floor making it look worse than perhaps it was. If he is deemed to have effected a spear tackle then he will be punished accordingly and I don't have a problem with that.

Based on judgements so far this season, intent isn't coming into it, which IMO is fair enough. It's nigh on impossible to judge whether a player intends to put another player at risk by performing a tackle which does in fact put the player at risk. It is much clearer to judge the actual tackle.

You do if you're like Bentham and position yourself ten or twenty degrees off to the left or the right of the posts. For some reason he resorts increasingly to this technique the closer he gets to the defender's try line. Why I have no idea.

It makes no difference unless he stands in front of the defensice line. 180 degrees is all that is needed whether he stands to the left or right.

Do you not understand the concept of angles? If whilst facing the sticks I turn 20 degrees to the left how is it possible to see players standing offside on the right?