this thing with brothbrain ian smith all stems back from a couple of years ago when saints lodged a complaint against him.
soon as i saw (yet again) he was the vcr ref i knew we'd get nothing from him.
if it had been the other way about he'd have give the knock on and obstruction decisions for wire......i'd defintley put a complaint in again about him..last few games he's made it obvious saints dont get the call.

Pretty much everyone but smith thought so.

Let him have his moment in the sun, or rain as the case may be. Next one gets the big red button.

p.s. so is swearing

I don't think it was.
If you look again the push (shoulder) actually takes Meli towards the Wire player.

The first Wire try was really poor play from a Saints pov, and I'll bet Simmons is fuming. 1st set of the game and Roby goes head down @rse up on the fourth tackle.

That left a poor pass from acting half (where Roby should have been) I'm not sure who made the pass and put Gaskell in trouble.
Great game for the neutral to watch and was decided on who gave the penalties away.

Wells at the end said no way was that an obstrution, how could it be Meli could have still took him down, look at it again Bridge actually helps Meli by projecting him to the offensive player quicker.

You're very silly

They get given, they get disallowed. We've had plenty affect us like this. You've had GAZILLIONS like this go for you

You played well tonight, but got beat. Live with it. I've had to, over the years

Nonsense. Meli was prevented from making the tackle a few vital seconds earlier, he was obstructed in the true sense of the word and more importantly for the last few years refs have been disallowing tries like that for alot less (including our match at the Dulls)

1. Yes it does to some extent but it also puts him off balance and takes away the momentum he had in one direction and puts him on a different trajectory.

2. It wasn't so much who gave the penalties away as who they were awarded to. (not to mention who was awarding them, there's enough being said about that elsewhere)

There's no doubting we have ourselves to blame for both last weeks and tonight's in some respects; dropped balls and wayward passes being the main things.

I thought you were a tad unlucky tonight. Quite a few key moments in the match didn't go Saints way. Were I a Saints fan I wouldn't be to disheartened over tonight's performance.

As for Hodgson's try. I though it shouldn't have been given. Bridge not only makes contact with Meli, but does enough to nearly knock him off his feet. Meli isn't able to effect the tackle on Brett because the contact by Bridge slowed Francis in moving across in the defensive line.

Exactly I'm not disheartened, disappointed though. If Meli could have got a clear shot on Hodgson I would have fancied him to prevent the try, being that Hodgson is about 8 stone.