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.

A good illustration why the refs simply can't win is last year's Catalans Leeds fixture, which Leeds won 12-27, despite a penalty count of 8-16 against Leeds, and Leeds having a man sent off.

McDermott moaned about how Catalans get excessive penalties and indicated it was all cos of crowd pressure.

But Catalans said that the penalties were all justified due to Leeds' tactics of slowing the game, and complained bitterly about the referee on the basis that having given Leeds 2 warnings for persistent offences, he never sin-binned anybody.

Can't win whatever they do.

The refereeing in SL is very poor. Offside is a particular annoyance as it massively impacts the game and it's one call that the fans have a perfect view of a lot of the time. It's policed so inconsistently and if you watch the Saints v Catalans game you can see the line speed is very similar from both sides. Catalans were rushing up around the ruck to stop Saints' big pack getting any momentum and several times they were clearly offside. Saints did exactly the same but further wide to stop Catalans spreading the ball and were penalised several times. It had a massive impact on the game.

SL not having enough referees is a problem for me. When a player is out of form and low on confidence, they can be dropped, replaced by another player. When a referee struggles, which James Child unquestionably is currently, there is no chance for him to sit it out for a couple of weeks to refocus and have more intensive training. If as KC points out the RFL are making £1,8m profit, surely some of that could go on two or three promising young referees to top up the pool? There should be competition for places within the referees as well.

Then you are unquestionably stupid.

I don't remember anyone from Saints complaining when Wakefield were "mugger" by the officials at Belle Vue last season ??
Winning the game at half time and then, following an intervention from the ref's supremo at HT, the whole style of officiating changed in the second half and
Wakefieled got hammered with the second half penalty count.

Regarding Catalan getting the better of the penalty count at their home games, what does he expect ?
A strong partisan crowd will always influence the ref, whether in France or any other SL ground.

Bradford and Leeds always got the better of the ref, with the crowd getting the "forward" calls in with monotonous regularity, never of course when the home team had possession.

No, it's really not. It is probably as good as it has ever been, most games get played with no real controversy, and the refs get almost every decision right, or in contentious cases, at least arguably right. They almost always keep control of games, and seem to enjoy the respect of the players, with whom they seem to have a good rapport. Anyone who says the refereeing is "very poor" is just being controversial, and using typical hackneyed hyperbole for dramatic effect. Of course i understand refs have their inveterate enemies too, and they will be "very poor" for eternity to them.


I watched the game same as you did and I completely disagree. Post individual examples and let's see if you have anything. I say you have nothing.


You problem is that the refereeing is "very poor". If there were additional refs, would that fact somehow upgrade the xisting refs to at least, say, fairly poor? The objection is pointless. There is only one SL and there are very few games. Why would anyone want to be a pro ref if they only got a gig every (say) 3 weeks? You have to maintain at least a faint grasp of reality, to suggest somehow we could have a large pool of top quality SL refs, all much better than our "very poor" incumbents, and all ready to come in at the drop of a hat, but most of the time, have nothing to do, is faintly dotty. The idea may be nice, but doesn't survive more than 5 seconds of thought.


I entirely disagree. Child is a much improved referee and I don't see a problem with him. Also, plyers could only be dropped and replaced if someone equally good is in the reserves. This largely is simply not the case, as the teams can't afford to pay for a team of 17 first-class equals to sit in the reserves just in case, nor would a top-class player be prepared to perennially do so. The situation with players is very similar to that with refs. There are reserves, but they aren't as good, in the main, whether for lack of experience or ability or both.

With referees its all down to that one word INCONSISTENCY which makes the officiating of a game leaning towards very poor. We really only have 3 refs that can produce an adequate (questionable) standard in Thaler, Silverwood and Bentham the rest are just not good enough and quite often the club coach in desperation put these through the media. There is no transparency between club and the RFL with grievances and its been like that since the beginning of super league.
Cunningham has gone in through the "back door" to speak to Sharp and both have concluded that nothing will change.
Refs these days are very weak and the players/coaches exploit it to the max, its like catch up TV the RFL look at the match videos at a later date to pick up the offences that the refs have missed. Last season and this season the officials have been shocking in controlling a game and get a lot of things wrong.

Get yourself out there!

Take positive action.

What a load of nonsense. An awful lot of games have several poor decisions. You claim to have watched the Catalans v Saints game and you reckon Childs got 99% of the decisions right? Get a grip. Did he get the forward pass right (No, confirmed by himself on Twitter), did he rule Catalans offside once? No, were they that disciplined? No, were they balls. What about the knock on against Walsh when the ball is kicked out of his hands on the floor? Wrong. What about the ball steal from Saints just after given as a knock on? Wrong. What about the penalty against Richards for the 1 on 1 ball steal in front of Catalans posts late on? Wrong. Your insistence that SL referees are bordering on perfection is pretty silly, watch the game again. Were Saints really that more indisciplined than Catalans? Did it warrant that penalty count? Could you really justify the no penalties for offside Childs gave against Catalans?