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.

Coming from a Bradford fan, no way was it an obstruction.

Riley had the right to be in support for Atkins. He didn't change direction or run into the defender.

Your and Wolf fans thoughts changed on the Gleeson supporting Roberts try at the HJ a couple of years back?
IIRC the board was in meltdown when a supporting Gleeson who was on the shoulder of Roberts "Obstructed" Matt King who was coming from a similar angle to the Bradford chaser last night to tackle Roberts.

Both were tries, but I think giving it the Brain dead Goon stuff is a bit much given some of the Wolf fans you have!

does it matter now we can not change what happened its in the record books now end of lets get on with the sport we love

Obstruction is about an attacking player reaching the defensive line before the ball carrier. IMO once the line has been broken the defending team can't expect to benefit from attacking players getting in their way if they are behind the ball carrier.

NFL style blocking is about preventing the defence from reaching the ball carrier rather than supporting the ball carrier, which is what Riley was doing and is a fundamental part of either code of rugby.

Not very good at this rugby league lark are you?

Has anyone spotted the re-occurring theme yet?

Specsavers not doing a great deal of business over Wigan way?