I have to say, this idea of rules being changed on the field but not in the rule book is nothing new. For ooooh, I'll bet for 20 years after the lawmakers decided to allow throwing the ball into the second row, the laws of the game said that, "the ball must be thrown down the centre of the tunnel"...and yes, I have noticed they now throw it to the loose forward..

Year after year they, yes it's always [ithey[/i, come up with, so called new 'interpretations', which are really changes in the laws of the game. A move from, "the ball must be placed or dropped", to "dropping the ball is a knock on", is not a change in 'interpretation', it is a change in the laws of the game and surely anyone who can read can see that.

Well you could always award a bonus point for winning a scrum against the head!

While we are dissecting rules (always a fine pastime) what about this scenario:

Team A kicks off with 30 seconds left on the clock, and a point behind. All team B needs to do is to play those 30 seconds out.

Player B gathers the ball under the posts, meanders forward and falls at the feet of the tacklers, and is as a result tackled with no impact to speak of. The tacklers release him. He does his best WWE "dazed" impersonation, scratches his arrse, and then slowly gains his feet, as if under a 200 kilo pack. He then stands bemused, while he tries to remember what to do, before eventually playing the ball in a manner reminiscent of a nonagenarian with arthritis.

Everybody in the ground is 100% in the abslute knowledge that he is very deliberately and with no subtlety wasting time.

This we see very regularly. Indeed, in any similarly close game this is what you will see. It is our equivalent of soccer players taking the ball into the far corner.

But the rule states:


Note "may" be penalised. But "shall" be penalised.

Now, I entirely understand WHy Player B is doing this, but because it is very specifically against a clear rule, it has to be penalised. And yet never in my life have I seen such a penalty awarded. Has anyone else? It would be great if they suddenly decided to enforce that rule. Jamie Peacock beware!

Nope I haven't FA.

Nor do I think we ever will.

And, much as I'm sure we're as guilty as any other team, neither does it make it right.

And, (he said in the hope of giving birth to another legendary thread) this is of course exactly the offence Mr. Joynt should have been penalised for, not the fabled but mythical voluntary tackle.

So he's now reffed us in 10 games this year. Today he showed all his regular traits, well documented in this thread. As usual some of his decisions were completely baffling-- not only to me and the fans around me but also to the players of both sides.
A new one for me was when he waved his arm in the air seeming to signal another set of 6 and promptly raised that same arm on the very next play signalling last tackle.
He wasn't the reason we lost but he may represent a reason why people turn away from the game.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think on that occasion he had stopped play VERY briefly and was waving time on. Might be getting confused with a different point in the match though.

That said, two other strange decisions (both of which benefited us) was that bit of play where we had knocked on, Widnes lumped it down field thinking it was a free play, we collected it behind goal and played on when he should have taken it back for a Widnes scrum. Also when Widnes were nearly in for a try with about 15 mins in, but Luke Gale tackled the Widnes man without the ball - should have been a sinbin all day long as Widnes would have been in.

Hicks did ok, he wasn't conspicuous and let the game flow. What I noticed was that as the game wore on and the crowd saw we were struggling and clueless, that was when they started blaming the ref for everything, but it wasn't him. Had a good view of the second incident, Gale had to assume the player would catch the ball, so had to make contact, he did then continue it when maybe he knew the ball was loose, but it wasn't that clear cut a pen to me. Agree the 'play on' looked wrong, unless he saw something I didn't.

Blatant pen;Hicks bottled it; but you will insist you are correct FA. As always.

As far as mistakes were concerned apart from the odd “free play” incident that went in our favour I didn’t see anything that bad. The laying on at the PTB and the lack of anything like 10m at times was still as infuriating and led to a poor spectacle.

Mind you with a quicker PTB and decent 10 we’d probably have been thrashed!

I remember him waving six to go and then the turnover on the next tackle, what made it seem logical was that the ball had been bouncing around loose just before, though, to be honest, I didn't see a Widnes player touch the ball but I thought Hicks must have done. Hicks' signals are ropey at the best of times though and I agree with Bullseye about the laying on and 'shallow' ten. Apparently, according to friends who see more than I do [at present!, refereeing in the championship is not as good as in SL..