It`s nigh on impossible to judge a forward pass and get it bang on all of the time..someone is always aggrieved no matter what you do, if a player passes the ball full on backwards, with hip movement, hand movement but the wind blows the ball forwards and it goes over your so called line is it a forward pass because the ball has travelled forward.

If a player passes ball sideways and is running backwards so the catcher overruns him is that a forward pass..the player has just run onto a flat pass ala whitings to shaul.

To judge a forward pass bang on the ref.tjs have to be bang in line with the pass, look at the angle of the hands etc, while moving himself..so its impossible.
You could call 4 forward passes in a game and get them all wrong and be called biased etc, or miss all 4 and be called the same by the oppo teams` fans/players.

People should stop slagging off refs and if they think they can do better and dare take the stick then give it a go, if they havent got the guts to do it dont slag off someone who has.

The wind has nothing to do with it. The ball should be passed level or backwards [iin relation to the player passing the ball[/i and neither has where on the pitch the ball is caught, it is judged in relation to the player, [inot the ground[/i.

Newton's law of motion dictates that we couldn't play rugby without stopping to pass the ball, if that weren't the case.

If the ball is passed backwards but is blown sixty metres forward by the wind and then touched down by a player who who was onside when the pass was made it is a try.

Similar for knock-ons, if the player passes it backwards but it hits the ground and bounces forwards, thats not an knock-on and is not a forward pass either, but we do see them given as knock-ons.

A few that are missed are not marginally forward they are forward by at least a metre and the TJ's are lined with the action and they SHOULD call for them, think the VR should call blatant forward passes, not all but some.

Most of your points I completely agree with but this one is solvable, at least this year and next. We have nine full time referees. When full time refs were introduced they were paid £50k. I'm sure that's creeped up over the years so maybe it's £60k now. 9x £60k = £540k.

Luckily for the RFL they have a nice chunk of money that they was withheld from us. Double your refs so that you can bring in the two ref system used in the NRL and pump the remaining money into referee training programs to improve the standard in the lower tiers.

The problem with the above is that I don't think there are another nine referees out there who are of a suitable standard to step up to super league level. That is probably a bigger problem than the standard of the guys out there right now.

Incidentally, I don't think the refereeing standard is anywhere near as bad as some people on here make out but it shows yet another way in which that money could have been better spent

Cummins has said that officials make decisions about forward passes on the basis of whether the passer's hands are pointing forward. If officials have effectively simplified the forward pass rule into something that is practical to make decisions on, why not make that the rule? In which case the video ref would be able to rule on forward passes.

There is no reason why the VR cannot be asked to rule on forward passes. There is no sensible argument why a RL VR can't achieve this, when a RU VR seemingly can.

If the VR is in doubt, or can't be sure, then BOD to the attacking team. What's hard about it?

They keep saying on Sky that it looks different from different angles. And? If one angle raises a serious doubt, then why is that a problem? It's not.

Magic Weekend vs Rhinos. Tansey Try from the penalty that shouldn't have been and the 20 metre offside decision that was missed. That was 2 refereeing decisions costing one team the match whilst handing it to the other.

Overall, I think that too often the inconsistencies in penalties is the difference between too many matches. I've tried my very best to be impartial as I can this season - I appreciate that no one is going to get every decision right for 80 minutes - but the "referee's interpretation" comes into play so much. I can only really cite Bradford games as examples as they're the ones I've been to, so:

Bradford vs Saints (Roby) - Plethora of penalties against Bradford in first 10 minutes for laying on. Player sin binned. Nothing really the other way.

London vs Bradford (Child) - Kaufusi horrendous head shot on Donaldson, knocking him out. Placed on report. Play stopped, penalty given. Later given 3 matches.

Bradford vs Catalans (Bentham) - Really fresh in the memory. This could be the only game of Rugby League I've ever seen where not one player has been offside throughout. It wasn't so much about what he gave (for the most part I thought he got the major calls right) but what he didn't.

I think moving to two referees is a brilliant idea. It's clearly too much for one man to watch for the defensive line being onside and making sure there is no interference/mistake at the play of the ball. A defensive ref and an attacking ref makes perfect sense.

I have often said that since referees went full time the standard of officiating has fallen. However, I cannot support your petition because I don't agree with some of your other points...

1. I don't think you can ask for change just because spectators come away from games questioning refs decisions - that will always happen come what may! (see next point on VRs). What you can complain about is the lack of consistency, and often inability to exercise much control over the game at all.

2. Use of video referee. I think that the VR is a waste of time for three reasons:

- It seems to have undermined referees willingness to make judgement calls on the field and their willingness to penalise players by using the sin-bin.

- I'd rather live with a 'human' error made on the spur of the moment than wait whilst the VR watches the 'action' over and over and still manages to make horrendous mistakes or the VR interferes during play.

- even if there weren't any poor VR decisions, you will never get the same grade of technology at every game because it will simply cost too much. So we will still have inconsistency.

Are you talking just in try scoring situations? Just those on TV or every game? I can see a situation where virtually every try scored would be referred to the VR, whichis not something I wish to see.

Rubbish. Leeds scored 42 points, presumably they were all Ganson's fault? None were defensive errors & penalties atributable to Bradford? Bradford only scored 38 points. Was Ganson responsible for all missed try & goal scoring opportunities? It's like accusing Ben Harris of directly costing Bradford the game because he failed to pass to a supporting Iestyn Harris 4 minutes into the game. There are thousnads of incidents that contribute to a game's final score, sadly it is the ones in the last few minutes or seconds that fans tend to focus on.

I'm a fan of 2 refs, but it is clearly not "too much" for one ref, otherwise how has the game worked this last century or so? I have never been aware of any ref having any difficulty in glancing at the defensive line at the appropriate moment and penalising offside and I'm surprised you suggest this. If this duty was "too much" for any individual then clearly that individual would not be up to the job.

I entirely agree, and said myself, that it was utterly ludicrous that Bentham never called an offside, but that was 100% clearly a decision he made, whether on instructions or not who knows, but without a shadow of a doubt there were some pretty disgusting offsides which on that particular day he made a policy decision to ignore, come what may.