Did anybody else notice the goons especially the Ginger one doing it all night ? It was a real pain and it messes up the markers , why is it our refs seem so unable to see simple infringements????

Yes, I noticed that. It sounds like nitpicking, but it only takes a little step to either side to put the markers in a 'not square' position and thus create a genuine advantage for the dummy half. Needs to be more carefully policed, that.

Quite a lot of teams do it, the annoying thing is when the marker stands his ground and the ball is played into the markers legs resulting in a penalty to the attacking side.
The refs get sucked into it, they are too busy lining up the 10 metres, next thing they see is an infringement at the play the ball created by the attacking side but is missed.

Both teams last night broke so many rules! Childes is such a bad referee, they are more like girls these days, when you think of Clay & Naughton!

Was going to say the same thing. Players will be told to take a step because it disrupts the markers. The refs will not penalise unless it's obvious.

Farrell usually plays the ball about 20 yards to the side of where he's tackled.

He was rubbish last night. Didn't look like he could break out a paper bag.

Wigan were doing it all night. They made as much ground after the tackle as they did before it. The default setting was to step forward a couple of times when playing the ball, which tempts the marker into pushing them back. But there were a couple of absolutely farcical moments, one in particular where Charnley in the first half shimmied between the two markers and played the ball a good 6 feet away from where he should have done. Whenever the markers were scrambling the Wigan player always moved up between them. They should have been penalised for it several times.

Thank the Lord - I thought it was just me it was doing my nut in. I was shouting about it constantly.

Leeds are the other GREAT exponents of this dark art.

Get it sorted Ref!

The play the ball was a shambles last night overall, add it to the tick list.

we need 2 refs on the field (and neither of them James Childs!)

either that, or the Ref needs to manage the ruck, with the touch judges taking total responsibility for the onside / offside 10m line.

And it is, you won and deserved it, Saints is only a nickname.

And a correct one too

This is another of those elements of the game that is being neglected when it comes to enforcement. It sometimes results in benefit for the attacking side, whoever they are. It just needs to be picked up on now and again but maybe the problem is a that of workload for refs during that couple of seconds as mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, the attacking player with the ball pushing the marker in the chest: this should be an instant penalty. Once the tackler has moved away and the players are no longer in contact, should one of them reach out to push or pull the other, that should be an instant penalty. It would take just a few matches to stop the messing around. I'm not a big fan of being selective about which rules to pick up on or making certain infringements fashionable. All elements should be policed.....and I don't mean every occurrence necessarily, but every type just now and again. Notice in Monday night's game (hell, any game) how many times players defending their own line had both feet in the field of play by some considerable distance......

Like most of the rules in our game (and probably other sports), its not policed until something high profile happens. It had been routine for winning teams not to take the ball up with any great agression in the last set of six. Chris Joynt does it in a final and its out and out cheating. I suppose you have to commend coaches and players for noting something to exploit for a period of time, until it becomes widely known and then it clamped down.