Whilst not suggesting that a referee is not beyond criticism IMHO attention should be on the action on players/coaches. Others have mentioned Soccer that I personally have zero interest in one reason being players diving/conning the officials and then everyone blaming them for getting it wrong which makes no sense to me. I just hope we (including the fans) do not follow that "sport" in a race to the bottom.

Tend to agree with this. In my mind the decision to rule out a perfectly fair try because Gaskell threw himself to the floor will negativity impact the sport unless the RFL deal with it swiftly.
To deal with it the RFL have to state that this sort of action by players will not be tolerated in the game and ideally ban Gaskell for at least a game. A strong message needs to be sent out and quickly otherwise it won’t be long before players are diving and going down like they’ve been shot before too long and we will be no better than football. It’s already crept in with players dropping at the PTB to try and con refs to earn a penalty or set restart.

Officials also need to be given advice and assistance from experienced and respected former players of the game in understanding what’s genuine and what isn’t.

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/32 ... inted-as-a The 23-year-old, a former Huddersfield Giants Academy player, wanted to be involved in Rugby League after playing and would encourage others to do the same. Makes you wonder

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/32 ... inted-as-a The 23-year-old, a former Huddersfield Giants Academy player, wanted to be involved in Rugby League after playing and would encourage others to do the same. Makes you wonder

Both the no try decisions that Huddersfield benefited from were both absolutely correct from a rule of the game point of view, isn't that what we ask for in our matchday officials?.

The Linnett no try was simple - Kenny dowell impeded the defender Gaskell by placing hands on him, the fact that Gaskell proceeded to throw himself onto the ground in a dramatic manner would have had no bearing on the decision to rule whether or not kenny dowell obstructed him, the dive happened AFTER the incident and that alone would have been the ONLY event the official was looking at - whether there had been an illegal contact or not - there had therefore the try cannot be awarded as it was deemed obstruction/foul play so penalty to the defending team although the dive was a shocker it didn't affect the actual event that was judged.

The Mcqueen one was even more straightforward, he lost control of the ball accidentally but the direction the ball took was towards his OWN try line rather than towards his opponents, it didn't touch anyone or anything else so the ball is deemed still in play, McQueen played on and touched the ball down for a try as confirmed by the Video Referee, correctly.

Unfortunately for a lot of fans the match officials judge incidents on the LAWS and RULES of the game and not perception or opinion.

As frustrating as it is both decisions were made correctly based on the appliance of the laws.