Sounds like a tribute to the players and their coaches as well as to the referee and other officials.

Seem to remember that Russell Smith was an ex Castleford player who took up refereeing when injury finished his playing career and I don't remember him having an overwhelmingly large fan club in these parts!

I think it's more that cricket has always had the spirit of the game ethos, right since the 'Gentlemen and Players' era when professionals (players) were allowed to compete so long as the spirit of the game was upheld. Also, perhaps more obviously, the convention applied to all participants in the game - both umpires and the players, so that everyone was singing from the same hymm sheet so to speak.The more general 'sportsmanship' or 'fair play', applied to other sports, does not seem to do the job - especially when serious money enters the sport alla football. It is noticeable that a game like cricket has no shortage of areas a cynical team could exploit in order to win yet examples what might be termed underhand tactics (Trevor Chappell's underarm ball, etc) are held in such disregard that they are not repeated, and most importantly do not become ingrained in the game itself, as in football with diving for example.

Of course RL is a very different sport to cricket and is thankfully not afraid to change it's ruleset. This is one of many reasons why it is a far superior sport than professional Rugby Union which is intransigent and is a sport where underhand and cynical tactics are allowed to prevail over more honest styles of play. However as the discussion is about the referee's role within this, it really is quite simple for even a simple minded person(i.e. a referee) to follow: They just need to take a moment to assess whether a team has been infringed enough to warrant blowing the whistle. Was that last tackle against the spirit of the game - deliberate and designed to hurt the player, or was it simply an honest tackle that looked worse than it was. That kind of thing. In this case it probably would help if the refs had some playing experience but it should not be necessary. Most of us watching on TV (from a neutral point of view, not when our team is playing!) can call the game pretty well, we know a player's intentions, etc and we know when there has been a tackle so bad that you cannot use discretion. It's not rocket science, even for a referee!

Well none of the coaches or players do!!!

There is a dangerous assumption there as well.

There are not that many followers of the game who know the laws as well, as can be seen by the posts on this site

Which all makes for the great game that it is.

It's called jurisprudence. The courts of the UK use it as a tool to read between the lines of law to clarify any grey areas. If it's good enough for them i'm sure it's good enough for super league.

You really enjoy deliberately misinterpreting things people say then coming out with ridiculous statements don't you? Either that or you are just plain thick!

They don't become refs , because they know they couldn't do it any better than the people they criticise at the moment , instead they become coaches ( and complain about refs ) or pundits and Spend hours dissecting other players mistakes , just like Paul Cullen tonight , a joke that he gets paid for the absolute garbage he comes out with