Gronk, please just hold your hands up and give credit where credit is due. Fev out tackled, out played and out enthused Cas. Running on fumes for the last 20 minutes and managed to hold on against what should be a far fitter side. But no, obviously Thaler won us the game! Dick.

Fev were clearly the better team, they were far more enthusiastic and tackled like their lives depended on it at the end. Cas played like they thought they could just turn up and win it - that's down to Millward being a poor coach who doesn't have the dressing room.

All I've done is point out Thaler did not ref the game to SL standard, he allowed Fev to slow the game down and Cas did not adapt to this - again, Millward's fault.

Also, cut the insults (and swearing) it's against the AUP

Fev weren't holding down anymore than Cas were. What Fev didn't do was give away stupid penalties by getting carried away. That's why Cas lost, plus having no strike within the team at all.
Anyone who blames the ref for that loss is obviously either incredibly biased, a young child or an idiot. It was an excellent reffing performance.

If Super League games were reffed that slowly every week Leeds/Wigan/Saints fans would be raising hell within the first month of it happening.

If you want games to reffed that slow then may I suggest you watch Rugby Union? That's nice and slow, it might be right up your alley.

As for stupid penalties, that's Ryan McGoldrick's specialty, thankfully he's out of contract at the end of the year

As the title of the thread is "Thaler", I'll talk about Thaler, although I must say a huge well done to Featherstone for their absolutely fantastic win this afternoon.

Thaler refereed very well in my opinion. I thought that the Daryl Clark try would have been given as "benefit of the doubt" had it gone to the video ref, so fair play to Thaler for getting into an excellent position and making the decisions quickly. No need to stop the game for 3/4 minutes, let the game flow.

Moreover, I thought that it was a bold move to sin bin Clark, but the correct one nevertheless. So well done for that one.

As a referee, your position is often the most important thing, and I thought that Thaler was in excellent positions at all times. He saw McGoldrick's elbow towards the end, Emmitt's swinging arm (which could have easily been missed), Emmitt leaving his knee in after the tackle, and in all three of these situations he gave the correct penalty. He could have sin binned Emmitt to be fair, for persistently offending, but he was lenient and fair play for that.

The only thing which was missed was Rangi Chase's elbow/forearm/shoulder smash on Tangi Ropati. The touch judge was in a better position than Thaler as it was on his blindside, and that is where communication is key. If Thaler missed the severity of it (which he did, as it looked like a bad one), then the TJ would have run on with his flag up indicating violent/dangerous play.

On the whole, I felt that Thaler was brilliant today. The game was very likely to boil over, particularly with Castleford players like Chase and McGoldrick running 10m after every small skirmish. Emmitt also caused a little controversy with his violent play, but Thaler got into the middle of it, took appropriate action, and allowed the game to flow. Had another referee come in and penalised everything minor on the floor, then the speed and quality of the game would have been incredibly low, and the Castleford fans would have probably come away saying "We lost because of the referee". Yet the way in which Thaler refereed it, allowed a fast, free-flowing game of rugby, which was a brilliant spectacle for the game, and I am sure that Sky are delighted with the way it panned out.

Hats off, Ben.

Isn't Thaler a Featherstone fan?

Wakefield I think?

I've seen him walking around at Cas u20s games a few times in the past couple of years though.

Not sure I'd say it was bold. Clark showed no intention at all of releasing the player. He was clearly happy to wait for Thaler to give the penalty. A blatant professional foul.



Agree with that.

he also allowed Cas 2 tries where one was short and the other was a knock on by yougquest leading up to it, so whats else did you want from Thaler?

just watching the widnes saints game both teams holding down longer than four seconds!! you need some better excuses gronk!! haha

Youngquest did NOT knock on.

The Fev player accidentally knocked the ball out with his hand when he was getting up from the tackle, Youngquest complained about this but Thaler told him to just play the ball, because it was accidentally knocked out.