I have to disagree. I believe, even if it's unintentional, refs do favour the bigger team or in some cases the home team.
In a tight game the referee's interpretation does influence the result.
The weaker (poorer?) the ref, the bigger the effect. We have three stand out poor refs at present.

I can't state facts but rumour has it that there is a Hull FC president on one of the panels. Also I think George Fairbairn has sat on the panel.

Now I'm not accusing either of those people of being biased but if the Hull derby was a week later and one of HKR's best player was up before him for something that someone else was given just a fine for. It may be too tempting for the HFC president to hand down a 1 match ban.

Like I say, I am not questioning the integrity of these men but to say there is 100% no agenda against any club could and probably is wrong. Some people do have vested interests in some SL clubs and so may look at their rivals players more than their own.

Match Review Panel as advertised by @TheRFL Mr S Ganson
Mr P Dixon
Mr S Presley
Mr M Burnett
Mr N Shuttleworth

Magic Superbeetle -
I agree, it still relies on the disciplinary panel handing out the right bans but I do wonder if they think about previous incidents or not. I'd guess not simply as a time issue.

I'm not particularly bothered what the NRL do. And I don't believe we should immediately take up something they do just because it's the NRL that's done it. I think we have a problem with rules and interpretations (and the disciplinary) changing year on year and I don't think that's a good thing. I'd far rather we implemented changes every so often, then looked at them over a period of time ie more than just one season or partial season. During that time, if the NRL has tried something we can also give that time to see how it works in the NRL rather than have to decide immediately whether to implement it or not.
Because things like changing interpretations on holding down etc can drastically change how a season is played by many teams.

I agree entirely on the villification of the RFL and refs. Accusations of agendas and conspiracy theories are as daft as some of the theories going around about the missing plane.
I wish the RFL, the disciplinary and the refs were better. But I don't believe there to be a conspiracy against anyone or any club.
The problem, I suspect, is a lack of money to either get the right calibre of people in the right positions or to set up proper procedures and processes.
But, of course, more money to the RFL means less to the clubs.

I think Rovers from Magic Weekend last year might disagree with that.

the referees making mistakes I can deal with, they have a split second to make a decision, when you have video evidence and 'they missed the incident' or at your hearing you can't back up your argument with a video because they already know your punishment is bollox. poore deserved a ban, but how can widnes get nothing for a tackle that was worse and more dangerous because they couldn't identify the culprit, JOKE

I think there's a case both for taking into previous behaviour and also one for judging each incident on its own merits and not 'punishing twice'. Either is fine and we have the EGP system. I'm not clear on whether the policy is to consider previous behaviour over and above EGP. I'm not sure the panel is always clear on it at the moment either.

Complete consistency is very, very hard to achieve. If Poore had got 3 games and the Widnes player (whichever one was most culpable) 2, then I'd have curled a lip and put it down to a subtle difference that the panel could see but I was blinded to by my club bias. Or Poore's previous record. But 3 vs 0 is 'odd'.
Also, if NH's representation is anything like right and they are simply missing important stuff, that's a bad joke. I notice the platitudinous RFL reply doesn't reject that claim. In game a ref can miss something very easily, but if the camera catches it and you've got a panel of people with a rewind button they really shouldn't.

I think it's just human nature, we all have cognitive biases, and even if as a part of their role refs work hard to control theirs they are still human. They are still prone to the same suggestions as everyone else and hold prior beliefs like everyone else and even just on a subconscious level that can affect them.

The second they decided not to impose a penalty on Bowen due to the world club challenge they lost all integrity and fairness for the year ahead. The decisions they make are baffling at best, highly dubious at worse.

I really don't think it's that much of a problem as is made out.

Lots of people on here look at penalty counts as a stick with which to beat referees. If a penalty count is skewed, it must be because a ref is favouring a team, right?

The better teams tend to end up on the right side of a penalty count not because the referee has a bias, but because the better teams are usually stronger, faster, better disciplined and smarter - attributes that naturally force opponents into making mistakes.

Catalans make this complaint a lot, yet watch some of their games and tell me that there poor disciplinary record isn't fully deserved.

The problem is, and always will be, is that it's all opinion. You might not think there's a difference but another person might. It's why it's vital that the reasoning is as clear as possible to show that another reasonable coach/player/fan would agree with it. There's too much dissatisfaction for the panel to be doing that effectively atm

It's also down to the laws of the game to be as clear as possible and for there to be clear guidelines (particular regarding sentencing which is FAR too lenient).

I agree with another poster above. Bowen somehow got away with that one vs Hudds when the attacking player didn't even have the ball. It's as bad, if not more so for that reason, than the ones we saw at the weekend. The panel didn't even point out the fact that Bowen had taken a man out high (shoulder contact my ) without the ball. That's where the anger and exasperation stems from with them atm.

I agree to an extent that better teams can generate penalties against the opposition, what is a better test is when you see a couple of average teams and one side gets a particularly rough ride, something I've seen more than my fair share of. And it's not always about the number of penalties, it can be around the distribution. Getting the benefit of 5 penalties in the last 5 minutes when your 20 points down might even the count but it doesn't have the same impact as getting them when you're still in contention, same with refs who start clamping down on persistent offside in the last 10 mins of a game, or wise up to borderline smart tactics long after the game has gone as a contest.

When I first came to London and started watching the Broncos regularly as a neutral it was quite an eye opener, I'd been used to Knowsley Road where the pop gave most of the forward pass decisions, and it wasn't just the 50/50 calls that went against the home side, the sense of injustice is one of the things that actually hooked me. My suspicion was that the parochialism that is present in much of RL's fan base, and in not a few administrators didn't magically stop when it got to officials. About ten years ago now a played in an amateur game at South London where the ref was a former SL official, a northerner, he was passionate about the idea of expansion and was happy to drive stupid distances to ref amaterur games in London. In the bar afterwards he told us of the night before a Broncos game a few years before when a well known former ref (whose name I won't mention) called his team of officials together and told them that he wasn't "going to give the Broncos anything tomorrow" and to bear it in mind.

Now the anecdote above is an extreme case, but London and Catalans are seen as outsiders to a part of British RL, it's foolish to even deny it. And even if officials do try to keep their entirely human biases in check it's difficult because certain things will always be in the back of the mind. In the early years of SL my Dad always used to moan about the Broncos playing like an Australian team, not because they were particularly dirty but because they played a physical game and not the "British" style. Around the same period he had it in for Leeds who were arguably played a far more dubious style with the likes of Newton, Barrie M, Morley and Fleary taking it in turns to push the boundaries of acceptable conduct, but London were outsiders and Leeds weren't. These days London are no longer a threat to anybody but themselves, but Catalans are, and I think that means their physical style will attract more attention than it would if they were another club.

rlhttp://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/RFL-charge-Hull-KR-chairman-Neil-Hudgell/story-20940304-detail/story.htmlrl

The RFL are going to hit Hudgell with a fine, despite a lot of support from fans, chairman and players across the game. Unbelievable