Quote: Him "So the ref didn't say it was an accident, the Widnes coach did.
Do you really think if the ref had reported it as an accident it would have been reviewed by the Panel, charged and found guilty?
I'm still struggling with the Ganson aspect of all this. What capacity was Ganson acting in to refer it to the match review panel? Has it been reported anywhere that Ganson was the one who actually referred it?'"
Gary Charlton, Workington's coach, has also said that the referee described it as accidental contact in his match report to the RFL. Hence why no action taken at the time.
I think Ganson's involvement must come from his newly acquired role as Match Officials Technical Director, I assume he must now sit on the Match Review Panel as a function of that role.
I'm a Town fan, and not a big advocate of Hock who does some stupid things on the field, but in the context of this incident I honestly think he has been harshly treated here. It was not a case of the player approaching the referee during a stoppage in play and angrily remonstrating, it was an incident on the run during a passage of play where the referee got mixed up with the Widnes defensive line. In fact you could argue that a more experienced referee would not have got themselves into that position in the first place. From what I saw Hock was attempting to scramble back in defence, there was no intent to collide with the referee, and it was so innocuous that nobody thought anything of it at the time. To get 4 matches for it seems way OTT in that context.