It's clear that referees should be allowed to use common sense, the problem being that they don't seem to have any common sense to use.

Think it was Cummings who explained it that way a couple of weeks a go. For me it should be if a player is prevented from making a tackle. Forget this "running behind the man" rubbish. That is what is causing most the problems.

How can Kirk Dixon be playing at the ball facing the other direction and hit it with his heel, but Bowen who makes a conscious effort to catch the ball be a charge down?

I agree, it's just with the use of dummy runners it can be quite difficult to really judge this, as players are running into the defensive line and into defenders while players take the ball behind, so they've brought in this checklist and criteria to try and make decisions easier and more consisent.

It's all gone tits up though.

That's the law. No rule on how far the player has to be, simply that the ball has to be rising. So that's the only issue up for debate - was the ball rising? That Bowen was a couple of metres away is irrelevant.

[url=http://www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/official_laws/2_glossaryCharging Down is blocking the path of the ball with hands, arm or body as it rises from an opponent's kick.[/url

At first glance I thought Bowen's was a shoulder charge, but on second viewing looks far more like a body check.

But don't let any of that stop the knee-jerks jerking.

Exactly, it should be a case of watching and deciding "would that defender have gotten there?" Too many of the ones chalked off recently are for defenders who had little to no chance of making a tackle on the ball carrier.

"You've got to take possession before you can pass it" - Richard Silverwood.

When did this become a rule?

I think I heard the ref say it wasn't a shoulder charge because he didn't turn in to lynch. So it was more of a chest charge.

It's not bollox. It's actually common sense. A Cas dummy runner ran ahead of the ball, therefore putting himself offside, and then interfered with play by blocking a defender's path to the ball carrier. If he'd run at the other shoulder of the Wigan defender he then wouldn't have blocked the defender's path to the ball carrier.

It's quite simple really.

It's a stupid one, the fact no further criteria is applied.

I can guarantee they'll be other situations this season when theres a blatant knock on but it fits the current ruling for a charge down, but they'll be no one on here questioning it because......it's a blatant knock on.

This. Bad decision aside that was a great half of Rugby League Football.

Great game and well deserved win for Cas. There will always be contentious decisions which could go either way. There are too many people who bleat on about referees. They will never get everything right. The TV coverage especially sky are partly to blame by focussing so much on 50/50 decisions rather than the skills of the two teams.