Quote: Him "The rule most definitely exists. It's right there on the RFL's website and has been used in other games this season too.
Just because there is an additional ref's interpretation whereby they CAN give a player the benefit of the doubt and not penalise him in this context, doesn't mean they HAVE to.
You may disagree with the referee's decision but it was a decision based upon the rules.
Don't show yourself up by saying daft things like Catalans should have had financial compensation, it just makes you look unreasonably biased and doesn't help your argument.
What blows your argument out of the water though is when you brought Stuart Cummings in as supporting evidence. I've lost count of the amount of times Cummings has got the rules wrong. From "any contact whilst competing in the air for a high ball is a penalty" to "you can knock on even if you're not playing at the ball when making a tackle."
He had little credibility when he left the RFL, he now has even less.'"
Yeah, the referees boss who literally made the rule in question has no credibility. Good one. The fact is that the referee in that case went against all logic and precedent at a crucial time in the game to deny Catalan a win. The archaic interpretation has not been applied one single time before or since, the rules were explicitly changed for use in that exact situation. It's even worse than the Magic Weekend tries involving Tansey and Green because it's not even an error or oversight, it's literally an incorrect interpretation of the rules based on the accepted standard practice. The referee could conceivably give a penalty at almost every play-the-ball for not making contact with the foot. He doesn't, and if he inexplicably decided to do so in the last second of a match to award the team without the ball a kickable penalty to allow them to level the scores then I'm sure there would be questions raised about his integrity.
At absolute best, the fact that the referee in the Salford match chose to interpret and apply the rules in that way at that specific time having not done so on any other occasion suggests he had an ulterior motive and was deliberately trying to cost one team the match. In reality I think he probably just had a brain explosion and forgot the rules, but that doesn't make it any more right.