Fine Aiton probably deserves an Oscar for the stagger and fall, however as has been said why did Ferres need to strike out towards the face of Aiton which did make contact. Regardless of the dive it was a penalty for striking

In the next game of rugby, watch how many times the man playing the ball pushes/strikes the marker. It happens incessantly. It should either be a penalty for all of them or a penalty for none.

It does seem like it is coming into the game a lot this season is it to do with the must win at all costs we do not want to be the bottom four

Bentham asked Roby did Aiton exaggerate or try to milk a penalty and Roby quite rightly said he'd been pushed and Leeds deserved the penalty.
Got to say though, there was something cringeworthy about Aitons action but none more so than Danny Broughs continual dissent.
Having said that, it was a very entertaining game with some great skills on show and the atmosphere sounded top class.

He seemed to make a miraculous recovery to get up and be interviewed for being Man of the Match. Was impressed. Must have took a hell of a lot of effort to get up after that rather nasty push from Huddersfield.

Simulators should be banned.

If Leeds are bottom 4 contenders, the rest of the clubs are in serious trouble



Having said that, IF one of the so called Bigger clubs do end up in the "relegation league", it would certainly cause a stir and it would probably lead to yet another re-branding/structure change.
Mind you, Wigan proved too clever for the RFL a few seasons back when they drove a juggernaut through the salary cap and then ran rings round the RFL and had their points deduction effectively halved.

Back on topic. Diving and blatant play acting is awful (thankfully seen most in the round ball game) and if something can be done ie some sort of retrospective punishment, it would hopefully stop players acting.

The game used to pride itself on being a hard game played by hard men.

Anyone would think Aiton had done a Rivaldo, the way some people are banging on.

What he did was no worse than the numerous tackled players who throw themselves to ground to pretend they've been interfered with to win a penalty, rather than just get up and bring the ball back into play.

I'd be more worried about how soft refs are becoming on dissent. Bentham making a big show after half time of pulling out Danny Brough and giving him a warning was pitiful. If he'd been at it for 40 minutes, why hadn't he even been penalised? Similarly Connor's petulant and aggressive outburst on the stroke of half-time. Just brushed off by the officials.

If you're not going to clamp down on dissent, don't be surprised if players don't have any respect for you later on in the game.

Jake connor shouldn't be raising his hand or pushing him, but to go down like that was in bad taste IMO and not needed, he also went down a bit theatrical earlier on as well.

but for me this wouldn't have happened if Aiton had been penalised for messing around at the PTB, Bentham got most others right, as it was awful viewing from BOTH teams despite what mr gracious Mcdermott said.

strange thing is though that Bentham told Brough he was happy with the first contact but not the 2nd, so is he saying that despite penalising both teams-rightly- for messing around he was happy for Aiton to be messing around that particular time?

there was also a push on the marker by Ablett a few minutes later that went "unpunished"

I think the issue was that the Hudds player pushed Aiton making contact with his face/eyes. Had it been a push to the chest like you see a few times every game then I doubt it would've been penalised.

Pushing the marker is standard practice now - it goes hand in hand with the new habit of moving off the mark by several steps, which has become the norm; in stepping forward, they have to push the marker out of the way to claim their bit of ground. It's cheating, and it's been allowed to continue for so long that it will be difficult reverse.

On the Aiton incident - having watched him at Wakey for a couple of seasons, I was shocked to see him go down like he'd been shot; it was a massive over-reaction and he should be a bit embarrassed about it. But - if Ferres had kept his hand out of his face, it would never have been penalised.

As for Broughy and his continuous gobbing off - someone needs to have a serious word; it's generally an issue in the game, but he's one of the worst offenders. Maybe the gaffer of the players union could have a word - I'm sure he wouldn't brook that kind of dissent from a fellow professional...