Sounds like a tribute to the players and their coaches as well as to the referee and other officials.

really good point adey. i reffed football at at swmi pro level and had an assessor at every game and a good crowd. you had to caution for certain things as that was expected at that level. now i'm back in local leagues in front of one man and his dog and i can use common sense, something i couldn't higher up.
as a result my marks from clubs are sky high and clubs look forward to me reffing. as i said a very valid point

Yeah a mate of mine refs at championship level (association game) and he says whenever anything happens his first thought is 'What did the assessor make of that?'

have to agree with most of that but you can't generalise like that - Thierry Alibert for example has a good job to go back to when his reffing days are over - he was lucky enough to get 'leave of absence' for a few years to be able to fulfil his dream of SL reffing.
I don't think the general standard has dropped in SL,it's just that Mr Child isn't up to the task IMO.
He wouldn't be any better or worse if he was full or part time IMO. I don't have a problem with the other SL refs - it's always been a thankless job and will remain so whether they are part time or full time.I,like most fans just expect to see some consistency with the refereeing, that's all.

thats not necessarily the measure of a well refereed game. Ive seen many a game spoiled by a ref 'letting the game flow' which mainly consisted of boring and turgid play, slowed down by lazy defense and poor technique which wasnt punished.

The referee refs the game, if there are infringements he needs to to punish it.

So are we saying that full time ref's are no better than part time ones? I'd pretty much agree that there hasn't been a visible improvement since the switch and also that good candidates will be put off from going full time because they earn more money in other jobs. Kirkpatrick, for example, turned down the chance to go full time because he had a good career as a banker (that's Banker) and the RFL refused to let him carry on part time when they switched to full time refs. You might think he was a crap ref but the point being that if he was then lost to the game because of the full time thing, then there are probably many others who we miss out on who would make good officials but just happen to have a decent day job they don't want to give up.

I see no reason why we need full time refs as I don't think it's led to the improvements that were expected - if it had, then fair enough, but the refs who switched to full time don't seem that much better now than when they were part time. I certainly see no reason to exclude refs who would rather be part time as long as their performances on field are up to scratch. Maybe the full time thing is why a ref who looks good in Championship RL doesn't get a shot at SL because they won't switch to full time. Maybe Mr Child was third choice to be stepped up but the other two said 'no thanks' to the full time thing (I was also surprised he got an SL gig after seeing him in action quite a bit). If you can keep your fitness up, keep performance up and make a few ref meetings, I don't see why we can't allow part time officials in SL.

to sanjunien - I wasn't generalising, as I hope is clear from the end of my second paragraph - you'll get very good full-timers and very good part-timers.

You bring up a good point regarding consistency, though, and it comes out of the points made by the previous two posters: if the RFL can exert more control over the decision-making of full-time officials (lets say for this purpose they can, although there are likely arguments for and against) then you would think...hope..that that would lead to greater consistency in decision-making? Something most fans want to see.

We still don't see it, though, do we?

Incidentally, this is in no way a knock at the referees generally. Thankless job that I would hate to even consider doing. Indeed, if I was dictator I would look to significantly increasing what I paid full time AND part-time top-flight officials, as well as providing a run-off income (like an early pension) for a few years after full-time guys retired from the top flight. That way, you'd perhaps be able to attract more talent and have a wider pool to select your top guys from. Just need some brass to pay for it, that's all...

I remember from somewhere (unknown can't think who) hearing some said that the only thing to have improved after going full time was his handicap.

Didn't Child keep his "proper" job when he went on the super league list?

Except it wasn't boring or turgid it was skilful exciting and fast , well Leigh were , unfortunatly Sheffield were crap really

As for infringements , there weren't many , as Championship clubs don't cheat as much as SL clubs

Doesn't matter any more. It means the same thing.

The thing is that, while several SL refs are not up to the job, the game is virtually impossible to referee. There is simply too much going on for one individual to police it properly, even if the 2 halfwits on the touchline, and two quarter wits at each end do help him out. That's why they have two refs in the NRL. If they relaxed the full-time rules and allowed part time refs as well then there might be enough refs available to have the two ref system. Hopefully between them they might then at least avoid missing the blindingly obvious, and it might sort the good refs doing an impossible job, from the just plain bad refs - like Mr Child!

I shall be checking the appointments before each game... and if it's being officiated by Mr Child, I shall not be attending. I am not paying £20 to watch him... or watch him ruin a game.

Yes it is very difficult when you have 26 players all che , sorry , pushing the laws of the game to their absolute limts to try to win the game at any cost