Toronto v Wire

Quote: Saddened! "Toronto didn't cover themselves in glory today, but neither did Ben Thaler. There was a lot of talk about referees 'losing control' after the Featherstone and Hull game and I think today again you saw a referee out of his depth. The first half hour was atrocious from a discipline perspective. Toronto came with a gameplan to be rough and tough and throw it around and see what happened. Warrington were just as aggressive and if anything worse from a disciplinary perspective up to the incident under the sticks. How many hair pulls were there on Kaye and Simms before that? Three or four at least and there were countless flops and swinging arms on tackled players, ridiculous sledging and chest-beating and Thaler did very little about it.

Then the incident under the post happens. There were a few punches thrown in that as well, just too many bodies around for them to connect. Thaler clearly got really flustered by that and for me the game turned, not on the red card, but on what Thaler did then. He broke it up and tells Hill to take his players back to the half way line and he'll talk to him then. Hill makes a flippant comment, brushes past him and starts it again, sledging and pushing and shoving. If anyone is talking about pub league rugby and pub league behaviour, that was it. What does Thaler do? Absolutely nothing, not a thing, just tells him really nervously not to do it again, which again is met with a flippant comment and backchat.

Fast forward to the yellow, just ridiculously harsh. No malice in that at all, Thaler all riled up against Toronto for some reason. The red comes up and Thaler is itching to send him off, cannot wait. That whole incident was ridiculous. The Warrington player has no right to kick it off after the play the ball, initial penalty should be Toronto's. They square up, Warrington player takes a huge risk and butts head with him. The punch was the weakest, feeblest connection there has ever been and it's now a red? For me that sets a huge precedent now, ANY punch is now an automatic red card, because he was being held by two men and it was no more than a slight push to the face. Red card is given and a string of penalties go Warrington's way. All penalties you could give technically, but absolutely none of them had any context in the game, they weren't gaining an advantage from it, he was just punishing any slight indiscretion because he had a major bag on about Toronto. He was ignoring the same minor indiscretions from Warrington. It was unprofessional and embarrassing from him as much as the Toronto team.

McCrone as Captain is entitled to question the referee. Nothing he said was anywhere near as disrespectful as what Hill said or did. All he said was it's a two way street, you've given us nothing and you're not treating us with respect. All completely true. Thaler was like my Mum when I was 6 there, unwilling to talk like an adult should, just sent me to my room without listening to anything, hiding behind the sanctity of being my Mum. I'm all for ref's being respected, but they've got to keep their side of the bargain.

At the end of the day Warrington were going to have the quality to win that game. Thaler, whether in panic or determination not to have another Fev v Hull 'on his watch' was deliberately refereeing one side differently to the other. Serious questions need to be asked at the end of the season about the refereeing as there are so many inconsistencies and too many times when referees are influencing games.'"

What a load of old tosh !

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