Had roles been reversed, we would probably have been screaming that our equivalent of Riley was merely running in support of the ball-carrier, and it was hardly his fault that the defender was the wrong side of him?

I thought I saw some contact between the two, and at the time I was screaming obstruction like most other people - more in hope that it might influence a decision than anything else. But I don't think any contact was anything other than our man trying to get round Riley, and its hard to contend anything other than Riley was doing what he should have been and was where he should have been.

No matter how hard I might wish for a valid reason for it to be otherwise.

This.

Very true - it could even be argued that if the Bratfut player had concentrated on going for Atkins, rather than running into Riley and trying to milk a penalty, he might have got a better outcome?

Atkins would have scored yes, but imo Riley knew exactly what he was doing. He clearly slows down once he is in the middle of the two players and that meant Atkins scored under the posts and not in the corner.

If he was chasing as a support player then surely he would want to be on the inside of the Bradford player??

EDIT - Had he not CLEARLY slowed down then I'd have said no problem. No speedometers needed it was obvious.


Still, was a much better game than I anticipated.

Nothing wrong with it. Perfectly legitimate and fair try. If the defender wants to get to Atkins he can always go around Riley.

The speed of running doesn't come into it (no matter how much you want it to). It's all about angles of running, and Riley ran a perfectly straight line.

It looked worse than it was because the Bradford player tried to milk it and con the officials by running staight at Riley then pushing him. Surely that's not in the spirit of the game.

If that's obstruction then we may as well make it illegal to support the ball carrier.

Didn't help that the Bradford player pushed him to try and 'milk it'

Why is nobody mentioning the chasing Bradford player reached out to push Riley in the back? Had he simply run in to Riley, rather than reaching out to push, then there would have been a more legitimate and debateable call for an obstruction due to Riley slowing down. As it is, the defender was running from an angle that brought him from in-field towards the touch line, logically with Riley slowing down that should have made a more favourable angle for the chasing man to get past Riley and at Atkins.

If Riley had maintained his speed, given the angle the chasing defender was running in from, he would have been much better placed to shield Atkins from being tackled had the Bradford man (I really can't remember who it was) had enough pace to catch him.

An alternative view - If the fullback had been back, leaving Atkins in a one-on-one situation with Riley supporting him, the push on Riley in the back could have given Wire fans a legitimate shout for "taking the man off the ball".

All of you claiming this was a deliberate obstruction are living in cloud cuckoo land and/or simply wish that it had been an obstruction.

Also - it seems odd to me that this non-incident has sparked so much discussion when Riley's try was a clear forward pass and should have been chalked off. Maybe RL fans give Eddie Hemmings' views more credence than they dare admit to

Indeed it could.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it becuse it's Wire, IMO it was an obstruction. RL would be dead if we didn't have debates like this.

IMO Riley supported Atkins until the point at which he knew he wasn't needed as Atkins wouldn't be caught and then he eased up. If the Bradford player had of concentrated on Atkins, instead of trying to milk an obstruction penalty which was never there, then he might have forced Atkins to the corner making the conversion more difficult.

We'll have to agree to disagree, then.

I just checked the laws on the rfl website and there are no examples of obstruction given that match the situation from tonight - the only example in the laws that could have applied is one in relation to a player who has passed the ball to a team mate, who then should "give way" to defenders in front of him, but is under no obligation to give way to players coming from behind.

As it is, Riley never had the ball - so the situation tonight isn't covered in the law book by example, so therefore there's no precedent to say that it was an obstruction to the laws of the game, it was simply a player running in support of the ball carrier, and the defender ran towards the supporting player instead of the ball carrier.