No we were booing because the ref was not consistent in his application of the rules. I have no problem with the penalties he gave, my problem was he only penalised Bradford and allowed Saints to dominate even more. Debatable whether it would have affected the end result with our defence the way it was, but that doesn't mean we cant query the referee's performance. It was one of the worst performances from a referee I have seen for a long time. Even the Saints fan behind me in the pop stand was agreeing that at times Saints were worse than Bradford yet Bradford were penalised.

Precisely. Numerous times Bradford were penalised for laying on and messing around at the PTB. Often quite harshly. Which is fine, providing both teams get the same treatment. They didn't. Both teams were laying on, both teams were messing about, only one team got hammered for it.

Hence why people were disgruntled with the official and made it vocal.

You can't ever complain about an official enforcing the rules. Some will do it harshly, some will do it softly. The only complaint comes when the same isn't applied to both teams, and that was the case today in many people's opinions.

It's a shame really, as had the official had a really good game, Saints would still have won comfortably anyway (as they were by far the better side, especially Lomax and Soliola), but people would be talking about that rather than a poor performance from a referee.

Well put chops

You can't hide from the fact that the Bradford defensive performance was woeful today but as others have said the ref had an absolute shocker. I thought Bradford steadied with the introduction of Langley, le strange and manuokafoa but the damage was done. Some of the assistance from the 'child' like touch judges was equally poor too.

I'd say there are more than usual complaining about the ref on here today

I would like to think that had the ref applied the rules consistently and fairly to both teams then the game would have been so much different. Its refereeing performances like Toby's that will kill our game off!

I don't think it would have. We were our own worst enemies at times, with defending like the Laffranchi try, and a halfback in Addy who will try his best, but is clearly not a half. Jonny Lomax was outstanding, and Sia Soliola at the beginning of the game had targeted Sammut and was making a ridiculous amount of metres every time he ran the ball in.

Saints were the better team today. The only difference the referee made IMO was that it may have been a bit closer. Saints would have still won IMO.

Saints were good but not outstanding,they didn't need to be,we were crap and the ref even crapper

30 minutes for first penalty to us,no team is that good with these whistles happy refs,if Ganson or Childs were reffing there would of been 10 penalties in first 20 minutes

difference was saints got you onto your backs, you didnt and often left hands in. Saints were smarted at the ruck, you werent as smart. I thought you did deserve a few extra penalties but some of the booing was childish in the extreme

Someone said about saints booing - we were taking the mick out of your booing

I have to say, as a Saints fan, we usually only get nonsense like that at Huddersfield. They like to shout ever other pass as forward. Our home fans can get worked up some times but do not go on for all the game.

Wrestling is a part of the modern game, if the ref says move you move. Saints stayed in the tackle as long as they were allowed to then got out at the right time, Bradford didn't. It is not that hard to understand. I don't like it but that is the way it is. Booing the ref just make you all seem a bit foolish.

In the end Bradford lost because they are a very poor side coached really badly. Hopefully you can get a few players back and get better. All the best for the rest of the season.

Don't be so one-eyed. So you got every tackle spot on? Timed to perfection? Yet we didn't.
We were poor and if you read these threads no one disputes that, no one is blaming the referee for losing. But even Saints fans must be able to see how poor he was. Had he been consistent. Had he penalised both teams the same, then no problem. But he wasn't and that's why the crowd got on his back. Take your Saints blinkers off and have another look at his performance.

And the problem you dont see is the difference in how (technically) the sides were tackling. If you watch that from a coaches POV saints were winning the tackle area with and without the ball most of the time, you weren't and were leaving hands in etc and got pinged. You did deserve a couple more penalties I thought but not many more than that. Win the collision, get longer, simple as that

But even when we did win the collision all Roby did was tell us to get up and allow Saints to wrestle on the ground. Saints did not win every collision for every tackle in the opening 35 mins. There is no way on earth Saints would have been allowed to wrestle like that with Ganson Silverwood or most of the other refs in charge.

You say wrestling is part of the game, they must have changed the rules for the Hull v.s Warrington game then.

I don't think anyone has said Saints weren't the better side - they were by a country mile and in all departments, but it doesn't alter the fact they got away with constantly holding down whilst we were continually 'pinged' for it; it was one-eyed refereeing of the worst order, imo.

I think I've put elsewhere that Roby is new and may well go on to become a good referee over time, but I sincerely hope we don't see him again until he is.

Saints dominated the collision so got quicker PTBs when they had the ball. When we had the ball we often got dominated by the Saints defence so it was a slower PTB. Many of the penalties at the PTB were because we were trying to slow it down on the ground. Once we fell into that spiral we expended a lot of energy and the defence got pulled apart.

My problem with the ref was his inconsistent interpretation of things like offside and hands on the ball at the PTB. These seemed to be made at random and just broke up the pattern of play making it a pretty awful spectacle. He almost seemed to look as if he had to justify his existence on the field by constantly blowing up. I thought he was too keen on the technical stuff at times and dug a hole for himself and got whistle happy.

I hope we don't get him again soon. I hope he's kept clear of any big showpiece games too.

Yep. As i said, when within 30 minutes the ref is the person dominating the whole game, and at the centre of attention, then even he must concede he's making an utter porridge of it.

Or is that porage?

I think that's a good summary. To be honest in the first half he could justifiably have penalised us at nearly every tackle. After his initial period of zero tolerance, which obviously only affected us, he seemed to decide that he needed to cut back on the pens and started to even things out.

The way refs officiate the ptb these days, if you get a combination of a fussy ref and one very physically dominant team it tends to end up one sided.