Did anyone hear him on the mic then? Blew for a saints penalty and said 'is that 9-8 now Joe?' I'm assuming that's Joe Cobb 4th official. Why does the ref need to know the penalty count? Just ref it as you see it and judge each incident on its own merits. Comes across as trying to make sure it's evened up. Especially as the penalty was when LMS played the ball to nobody and Wigan player who looked onside on his line picked it up. Not suggesting it's a conspiracy or bias, it just makes me wonder if refs are told to even up penalty counts which would be ridiculous. If not why does he need to know the count?

Might have been considering a team warning if there were another 1 or 2 penalties.

Thought Hicks was pretty good in that game. Not an easy one to ref

I've seen a lot worse refereeing performances. He made mistakes as all refs do. Overall I thought he controlled it well. The incident the OP mentioned was a penalty as LMS was pushed as he was standing up.

Correct decision for the LMS push. Why defenders insist on propelling themselves to their feet by pushing down on the player trying to PTB is beyond me. Keep your hands off him and it's never a penalty.

The one that confused me was the penalty where one Saints player stole the ball from his team mate and we got penalised. Couldn't make out what that was for.

Bemused me too. Missed the signal from Hicks at the time.
Only thing I can think of is offside in some way.

Gutted . Thought this was a Bill Hicks thread

Yes, totally agree. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour.

regards and all the best,
Sean O'Loughlin

Ha, he is murder for it yes, but then it's endemic in the game. Apart from at Leeds of course, they never do it...

This seems to be the new thing, i've lost count of the amount of times Huddersfield have been penalised for this already, there were 3 or 4 yesterday
The attacker, drops the ball at the same time he walks/pushed into the markers, and appeals by waving his arms or throwing them up,either the defenders aren't smart enough to get out of the way, or the attackers are too smart for the officials, surely the TJ can see what's happening? whatever, the ref's give a penalty every time to the attacking team, when to me, the defenders have every right to stand their ground, the attacking team should be penalised for it IMO as it's him moving off the mark into the defenders.
There is too much appealing and protesting going on now, every play the ball and every tackle, every time a ball goes dead or a try appears to have been scored, there are players throwing their arms up, waving them about, running over to and shouting at the officials, it's getting more like football every season.

I did ask Mr. Hicks about this,well more about the seemingly lack of respect towards officials, at a giants pre season forum, and he said there wasn't a problem with it, and that players' respect towards the officials hasn't deteriorated

and I get properly annoyed that hardly anbody plays the ball with the foot, in the NRL they do it (mostly) properly and you can't say that their play the ball is slow because of it - think I am just becoming a grumpy old man but the play the ball is one of the original rule changes that the Northern Union brought in to emphasise the differences between the games and you virtually ALWAYS used to get penalised for doing playing the ball correctly

I'm sure i've heard it said that in the Northern Hemisphere game you don't actually have to play the ball with your foot, just make an attempt?
I'm sure some budding James Child(S) will confirm.

Playing the ball is the whole crux of why we are different, and is it so hard to play by the rules? we had no problem for almost a hundred years till super duper league came along.