Saints were great as they have been all year, nobody is trying to deflect from that, at this point they have been far and away the best team, that doesn’t take away from the ref was pathetic and out of his depth FOR BOTH TEAMS !!!! I’d have thought being a saints fan your ego has been massaged enough all year by the sky team but it seems not.

Side note: I (and most other fans I speak to) really don’t care if you or Hull, Leeds, Wigan or Warrington fans think of us, iv been a member on here a long time and up until the last few years all I heard was how it would be great if someone else challenged the status quo and how little Cas were most peoples second team, now we’re tryig to build a winning mentality and are up there we are showing ourselves up as a club, Darryl Powell is the devil and Luke Gale is the most arrogant rugby player ever and last year we only won at home regularly because we our pitch was too small. Funny that isn’t it ? Shove your RL family

The problem is that apart from Powell and a few Cas fans everyone else thought the ref was ok - what part of this don’t you understand?

When any coach, player, or anyone else acting in an official capacity criticises a match official for his/her performance in public it diminishes the game as a whole: we all lose. The point of criticism is for the object of that criticism to learn from their mistake - it should happen in private, at a match review session, with all interested parties contributing. That way we stand a chance of attracting more match officials to the sport, and of raising and maintaining a high standard of performance over time. It won’t stop individual below par performances in individual matches; referees are human, like coaches and players. But it will help to minimise the number of times that happens, as well as inculcating a better culture throughout the sport. Coaches have a particular responsibility in this regard. Powell’s sullen interview on Sky was unacceptable, acting directly against the interests of the sport; there are better (and more civilised) ways for him to have made his point.

Maybe, just maybe he wouldn't have had to resort to making a comment in public if Steve Ganson actually agreed to a meeting once in a while? He's consistently rejected any offer of a meeting to discuss certain decisions/lack of consistency in the game.


When the head of the refs is so up his own backside he doesn't want to hear valid criticism, what are the coaches actually meant to do?

The problem with a coach blaming the ref is that he is giving his players an excuse for losing.

It's not the ref who missed tackles or dropped the ball over the line.

The players should be looking at themselves to sort out their shortcomings but now they can shrug their shoulders as if it wasn't their fault.

No idea whether the Ganson allegation is true or not but criticising refs after a win would certainly cut more ice than whining after a defeat - particularly following a TV game where most decisions were shown to be correct. If Powell's aim was to improve standards - which I doubt - he couldn't have picked a worse platform or a worse way to go about it.

He wanted to meet with Ganson last week after the Magic game where it was Kendall. So I really wouldn't be shocked if his problems with Kendall were from previous and something in the Saints game compounded it.

Get over yourselves, jeez

Not sure how relevant your first point was to the actual topic but as a general statement it’s spot on.

When Cas froze in last years GF you could positively feel the combined joy from Leeds, Wigan and Saints fans in general and most especially those who love the status Quo!!! Even better that Cas are not appearing as good as last year which just validate their snobbish opinions.

That’s not fair but as there are numerous reasons for Cas slight dip in form. Hoe er the Ref isn’t one and blaming him makes the whole club look stupid and just reinforces the elitists.

Ditto my own club Trinity - we won’t exactly lay down and die far from it but results have not gone our way and we are on possibly six points less than perhaps we might of been.

If we’d have been Wigan every week would be endless sob stories and brilliantly constructed excuses. We on the other hand have been dismissed as on season wonders who are slowly but surely heading back where we belong and as you say we will become an obscurity soon enough if we don’t change this season around.

That said our results are of our own making, we’ve had some rough calls and some were even game changes but then who doesnt? We need to respond positively as do Cas and I see absolutely nothing positive in what Powell said and imho he let himself down.

As someone who lives in Cas and was well and truly sick of all the 'Champions' hype including merchandise as shown below, I laughed my 'ickle socks off!!!

The problem is that the highlighted statement is not true. The referee was not rubbish, he actually had a pretty good game with the odd 50/50 decision going against you. That happens. It's a bloody fast game and the ref is only human.

Another point that has been muted on this thread is that Powell can be as angry as he wants regarding the referee, but it should never spill out into the public domain. I might be biased, but Radders is excellent post match regardless of the result and Powell could do with gaining some of that humility.

Not really. Most of the Saints fans I was watching the game were miffed that the Grand Final was a one-sided romp for Leeds so I don't know how you got that impression.

As for Cas' drop in form. I'd suggest that's more to do with other teams improving their efforts e.g. Saints and Warrington. Take those two, with their NRL experienced coaches, out of the equation and Cas would be comfortably top 4. What Holbrook is doing is raising the standard of the game over here, which in turn is exposing the lack of quality coaching within this competition. The success last year was great but it was tied in with a competition which has been stagnating since Maguire left Wigan at the end of 2011. Now that coaching quality is rising again, so it becomes harder to compete.