Quote: Saddened! "They do have a point. I'm not convinced it's entirely bias as opposed to sheer incompetence, but the refereeing in Super League is absolutely horrific. It's one of the main factors holding the competition back, they really are incapable of doing the job. The referees are low calibre individuals who have no consistency, composure or judgement and the touch judges are a farce. They are fat or old or so young they quiver whenever the crowd make a noise. They contribute nothing and ignore blatant rulings because they are too scared to get involved.
The refereeing really wouldn't be any worse if you took the average joe off the street and asked them to do it.'"
this season has seen the worst reffing since SL came to Perpignan IMO - not cheating just an in-built northern bias by refs with some extraordinary decisions going against the Catalans - decisions that were not even 50-50 calls in many cases
The worst culprits have been Messers Thaler, Roby and especially Ian Smith - ironically the worst reffing performance of the season at the Catalan home games was by Halibert who was absolutely appalling - it seemed as though he was deliberately not trying to show bias toward his countrymen, he was really OTT !
the biggest problem the french fans and I suspect the Catalans have against the officials (i'm a Saints fan BTW) is the constant need to verify everything with the VR - the attitude towards the Catalans appears to be 'find a reason why the try should stand' rather than find a reason why the try shouldn't be awarded' which are two different things.
the general level of SL reffing is disgraceful so far this season and it's about time refs on the field of play took more responsability and not take the easy option and call for Ian fookin' Smith !
