rhinos in game comments

Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "Well, another sterling effort, and a game that we certainly deserved to win, and should have won.
Not many complaints, but some of them are critical.

1. The penalty against us for passing "after the tackle". Bloody ludicrous! Even if he had called "held" (and I just watched the vid and he did not) - WHY call held almost an instant only after being touched, and when clearly, to anyone, he is NOT held, and is struggling to get the ball away? A game-turner as we could easily have scored in the next tackle or two.

2. The Halley "No try". As most will know, I reckon our VRs are just there for comedic effect but really - a dropout??? On what possible basis? No sane person could ever coinclude that the Leeds player grounded the ball, and the only grounding that took place was by Halley's chest when he ended up lying on the ball. Which is, of course, a blatant try. And even if not blatant in your opinion - why is it that the Bulls never, ever, get a 'benefit of the doubt'?

3. Orford's attempts to kick goals. At least, I think that's what they were. For a man with a bit of a kicking pedigree, he is utter gash. Not even kicks under the posts are convincing. He doesn't even threaten the posts. We need to sack him off that job post haste. And of course it cost us the match.

4. The crass drop-out decision. At the very least it was debatable who put the ball out, and WTF did not the ref just ask the VR for confirmation of the correct re-start - as we see so often, and so wisely? Instead, we end up with a decision which is blatantly and amateurishly wrong, compounded by a pig-headed decision not to get the help available, and which would have taken 2 seconds. And again, it ultimately ended up costing us.

5. Reardon, it seems, is pathologically terrified of his touchline. I have lost count of how many tries have been let in, in the 25 metre gap that he leaves. He's not in general playing that badly, but he's an utter liability coming in off his wing like he does. And every team knows he does it, hence the kicks into space and hence the lomg passes out wide. Again, it ultimately cost us.

6. Having worked a decent position for a DG - WTF were we doing? Ended up very funny with Lynch's abortion almost sliding over but really - again we had the matchwinning chance almost on a plate right there and screwed it up.

So much for the complaints. Overall, though, what a massive showing from the team. orford just gets better and better. Langley, Lynch and Scruton are monsters. Whitehead is coming on leaps and bounds. And Menzies - well - what else is left to say? Plus L'Estrange is rapidly making a big reputation for himself. And NEro suddenly and inexplicably right back to form. The first half especially was top notch - and with a kicker, and without bizarre refereeing, we'd have been home and hosed. For much of the second half we were chasing shadows as a long sequence of decisions went Leeds way and we had about a billion consecutive tackles. Still we stuck at it, and almost won it. Not perfect, but an excellent and entertaining game, and a point which the doom-mongers never believed we could get.'"