One thing I've found myself moaning about on Twitter since the restart has been the refereeing, particularly set restarts. It just seems odd and not reflective of how the balance of games are going.

Saints won 42-0 against Wigan. A game they dominated throughout, both territorially and physically. Yet the set restart count was 7-1 (!) in favour of Wigan. How do they explain that? The Saints line was never under pressure, there were almost no breaks or wins of the collision, yet we conceded 7 set restarts. Wigan on the other hand were under a lot of pressure, scrambling round to hold their line and concede only 1? If it were junior/amateur there would be cries of mercy rule refereeing to keep the score down. Woolf has had a moan about it in the press after the Wigan game, but it was a similar situation against Warrington. When Saints were on top in the opening 20 odd minutes, 8-0 up, they were 3-0 behind on set restarts I believe. That game finished 7-1 as well I think. You'd expect Warrington to edge the stats for set restarts as they did the balance of the game.

I've noticed it in games other than Saints as well, one teams seems to get hammered at times and there's no consistency with how each team are refereed, even within the same game. Are some sides coached to give full penalties away and not set restarts as you are more likely to defend a penalty with a set line of defenders than a set restart? Or is just an issue with the standard of refereeing and they struggle for consistency in the same game never mind between games and referees?

At the PTB we now have two rules for delaying play. 1. Set restart 2. Penalty. How do you constitute which should be applied? In my view, it's so inconsistent that it's not improved the game as a whole,but after a couple of set restarts on the bounce, the defending players look gassed out. No kick for touch, or scrums to get a bit of a breather. The NRL is a different animal to our game here,and the officials are far far better than what we have here too. What works over there doesn't necessarily mean it works here. There is also a captains challenge in the NRL which is working extremely well, but we know why we won't use that here in the televised games don't we? It would expose even more incompetence from our officials.

Not a clue why you think NRL officials are any better than SL ones. It's a better competition but the officials are equivalent. Indeed I'd argue they were worse the first few weeks when they resumed after lockdown, some really poor game-changing calls over there this year which haven't really happened here this year to the same extent.

It's a set restart for a ruck infringement as long as they can still get a reasonable play the ball. It becomes a penalty when it totally breaks down (e.g they lose the ball or the defender takes an age to get off). Same rule in NRL and SL for that.

It's simply my opinion.

Would that be the calls from the bunker? If so, i agree.

Do you mean a ball steal?

Anyway, The point i'm trying to make is, the 6 again seems inconsistent here, and seems to be applied with more latitude, and a bit of common sense in the NRL . BTW - I'm not condoning foul play either. personally i would just go back to how it was before, and just give a penalty for an infringement at the PTB. I liked the concept at the beginning,but now i don't.That's my opinion.

Fair enough.

No I'm not talking about ball steals, they're always a penalty. Sometimes a player being held down, pushed back down, leg pull, having a defender's hand on the ball, having a defender kick the ball at the PTB etc will lose the ball as a result. The defender is at fault for a ruck infringement in those situations but play breaks down to the point where the ref can't simply wave 6 again, so he awards a penalty. I suspect its those instances where you will have seen a penalty awarded for a ruck infringement (along with instances where there is a run of them, which escalate to a penalty and possibly bin).

Yes I agree with that,and that's how it should be. Just leave it as a penalty though, and forget this 6 again restart. I just don't like this 2 tier infringement option. This is where i feel our refs are poor at trying to deal with the PTB. They're just not consistent. The speed of the game now with no scrums ,and this 6 again, It's no wonder the players are struggling to get up quickly from the ruck. This is where the refs need to apply some common sense. The players are not robots.