Think it's. Cunningham and Sts who an absolute mess at the moment. First he blames his players and now the refs. Perfect officiating is unacheivable, so you coach players not to give the ref any excuses. Unfortunately, Sts gave Child's loads of reasons to penalise them.

So did Catalans though, and they weren't treated the same. Read the article, Sharp agrees with Cunningham, just claims he cannot do anything about it.

He talks some sense, but directing it all at Les Cats diminishes the argument somewhat - it looks again like sour grapes.

Either way, I expect that Cunningham's cosy chats with 'Sharpy' will come to an abrupt end, given that he's quoted him saying some fairly damning things about the RFL's administration of match officials.

If the consensus is that all decisions have to be given by the ref with minimal advice from touch judges ,in goal etc then why have so many. May as well do away with a couple of them and have an extra ref in there . Only issue would be if one ref saw it one way and the other ref disagreed ,then we have scissors , paper , stone to resolve. Iamagine that on the big screen

As one of the major officiators it would seem incrongruent for touch judges whom are frequntly in line with play not to signal to the referee for forward passes, I mean they don't really bother with offsides at the scrum or much else for that matter. To ensure consistancy/better calls why wouldn't you use them for any/all infringements and decisions?

The last time a touch judge interacted with a ref via mic was to ask if he could go for a wee wee.

Don't believe even for a second that Sharp "agrees with Cunningham" on most of what he whinges.

Starting with the "forward pass", when Sky showed it from all angles, especially the view from the posts, it was not by any means clear cut. The linesman was right in line with it and regardless of his right to have an input in general play, here a try was scored so the ref is obliged to check with each touch judge. The touchie clearly didn't have a problem with the pass and he was in line whereas no camera was.

All this "we got penalized but they did EXACTLY THE SAME yet weren't penalised" is just childish guff. No two incidents are exactly the same. As for being offside, there could be a hundred penalties a game for that, but (rightly) the refs do not penalise most offsides because they judge that they do not materially affect the play. If the ball came the way of an offside player and he got involved in the tackle he would be penalised but if it goes the other way, he wouldn't.

"Consistency" is a frequent mantra but it is 95% of the time the team on the wrong end of the penalty count and the loser that whinges about inconsistency. People can feel a ref is inconsistent but that does not mean they are right. Why would a ref judge offside, for example, differently for one side, than he does for the other? Unless you go so far as to allege deliberate cheating, which is paranoid bat loony, I would say the ref's faculties will apply in the same way for all incidents over 80 minutes.

Of course on occasion a ref will have a mare. So will players, or any sportsman. But to suggest that, overall, there is some sort of institutional incompetence or worse is just paranoid nonsense. The refs in the Championship are noticeably less good than those in SL - but the that's to be expected, isn't it?

I would say the fact is that - the odd controversial incident inevitably apart - the refs do a very good job over 80 minutes, getting decisions right probably in excess of 99%, and watching pretty much any game as a neutral should convince any reasonable viewer of that.

I think the refs do a decent job but that they could be better. The system that they come up through and the full time ref system needs more money put into it and I don't see why part time ref's can't take SL games alongside the full time ones.
I also think ref's need longer in each "stage" of the refereeing ladder before moving on to the next.
We also need a 2 ref's system to help police the incredibly difficult area of the tackle and the play the ball.

The ref's are better than ever (though I think they accept too much dissent) but with super slow mo replays of every incident their "mistakes" are highlighted far more than ever before.

James Child admitted on "ask the ref" that he, and the touch judge, made the wrong decision for the forward pass.

I also disagree on your point about offside calls. Often the acting half back will take a quick look at the defensive line and will make their play accordingly; the players in the offside position will impact on their decision to go the "other way" and therefore not involve the offending player; however the act of being offside has directly impacted on his choice of play. As they saying goes, "if you are not interfering with play, why are you on the pitch".

It shouldn't be too difficult to take them all back 10 meters and actually penalise when [ianyone[/i is offside, you know like in the rule book. Sure, the first couple of weeks would be penalty-thons, but the players would soon learn not to be offside. In fact, when did the rule get changed that gave the referee discretion to make that judgement on whether he is interfering with play or not?

Amazingly, when you look back, we managed to have a perfectly decent sport (some might even argue better) when the offside distance was only 5 metres... The point about dummy halves is a fair one, but as long as it's the same for both sides...

"should" is not an explanation:

the rules are quite explicit on players and off-side:
"If the ball is played quickly, all players will not necessarily have time to retire the prescribed distance.
They should be penalised only if they intentionally interfere with play – either actively or passively."
and
"The Referee should usually position himself ten metres behind and to one side of the point at which the ball is played as a guide to the team not in possession. If tackling is excessively keen or play is unnecessarily rough, the referee may forsake the ten metres position in order to be nearer the players involved in the tackle."

You quote an old saying, may I remind you of another one (even older)
"Speccies know nowt about the game." It has been said to me on more than one occasion (and last time from a person born in St Helens, now sadly deceased and missed).

That's not my point though, I said that it wasn't clear cut.


In such a blatant case a penalty would be given though; as you say it has clearly interfered with play


Yeah, yeah, yeah we have had this point argued to the death a thousand times before. Look, it just doesn't work. No ref can properly and exactly police 13 players to all be behind an imaginary line, at exactly the moment a ball is played (if it ever is played), and your point was even conclusively disproved some years back when a temporary ruling came in that on the goal line, players had to have both feet behind the line. It never happened, it was impossible to police, your "soon learn" just didn't occur and it was very quickly and quietly relegated to the dustbin of non-starters.


Changed? the rule hasn't changed. It's either you haven't read it or don't understand it. You think that if a player is offside, then it is a penalty, but it isn't! It is only if the offside player attempts to take part in the game or influence play that a penalty results. If he does neither then YES he IS offside and NO he is NOT penalised.

The second part of your question is nonsensical. The referee does not have a "discretion" to make a judgment - he MUST make a judgment! If a player is offside the ref MUST decide whether he is attempting to take part in the game or to influence play.

Maybe you're confused with the discretion to stop play or play an advantage? Even if the ref decides the offside player IS attempting to influence play, he may still let play go on, e.g. to see if the other team scores a try etc., and if it doesn't, then award the offside penalty, if they get no advantage.

I can't say I've noticed any great difference in the quality of refereeing. It is what it is.

I do think the rules could do with tweaking here and there, tho. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with supposedly "charged down" kicks in which the player isn't even looking at the ball and has no idea where it is - and yet he ends up conceding a fresh set of six thirty yards down the pitch after it glanced off his backside.

Six more tackles in the opponent's half strikes me as an overly generous reward - especially if the attacking side botches the play on fifth and ends up making a rushed clearance.

My other bugbear are players moving yards forward of where they should be playing the ball. Time and time again I'm seeing players getting away with this. It's particularly galling when the defensive side gets pinged for being offside on the next play. They've lined up as they should and yet because the opponent has crabbed upfield they immediately appear to be all offside.

Did anything ever come of Bernard Guasch's rant a couple of seasons ago about there being an RFL-led conspiracy to stop the Dragons being successful, which is why they never came out on the right side of the penalty count?

Seen a few coaches since then be disciplined for complaining about refereeing, indeed this is the second instance someone has pointed out the lopsided penalty counts the Dragons benefit from at home after Brian McDermott did it last year.

Yes, it was swept under the RFL's all-purpose carpet, the peak of which is now only 75 feet lower than Scafell.


Of course, now that the referees are all bent, and have conspired to deliberately award excessive penalties to Catalans, this is the reason why nobody can ever beat them, and they keep winning every game in every competition.