I've argued before that this is an area of the rules that needs clearing up because had a Warrington player knocked it on, there wouldnt have been an argument that it was offside. Its a silly part of the law that sees a player attempt and fail rewarded, But by not risking that knock-on they are (or should have been) punished.

The problem is with this is that in theory you could send 4 players 50 yards forward in different places, kick the ball into a space where an opposing player won't get near it and near one of your 4 players to retrieve the ball and score a try?

59 tackles, of which, 35 were flops and 20 were when he wasn't square at marker yet he was penalised for about three of them!

Had the ref policed the ruck correctly we'd have had about 36 points tonight through more dangerous field positions and nobody would really be talking about these decisions - their illegal spoiling tactics nearly won them a GF place when they shouldn't have even been in the game

Wigan fans wanting Saints to win.....not surprising.

Good.

Well he certainly didn't police the defensive line correctly; lost count the amount of times Saints were offisde yet strangely they only got pinged for it once or twice at a push......

It's was once, and that wasn't for a breach of the 10m!

8 - 3 penalty count and you're moaning about that?!

Yes, it should have been far higher. Not really a surprise given the way Wire play the game, it gets to this time of the year, and people seem to forget about slow play the balls.

Despite Eddie Hemmings giving his usual anti Wire bias there is no conclusive evidence that Lineham drops it. After Thaler gives no try to the last Saints try, there is no clear view of the grounding - so no try, there is a clear knee in the way, regardless of what the obvious outcome is. I've been moaning to anyone who will listen about how ridiculous this 'try' 'no try' on the field decision is. If there is the slightest doubt, let the video referee decide without any on field influence. The video referee has the best view, let them decide, without having the poorly sighted referees decision having any sort of influence.

The best team won. Now the Wire.

It's not about what the count [iwas[/i it's what the count [ishould have[/i been. The infringements by either side should have seen a 25-6 penalty count or something, they were spoiling at every opportunity and it kept the game close. We would have dicked them if it had been ref'd properly as the territory stats would have made for a very different game than what Thaler allowed.

Thats exactly how Cummings saw it and said Thaler got that one wrong, if this is going to creep into the game then the half backs chip over the defensive line and regather is going to be scrutinised.

It was palmed back by Walsh to a warrington player anyway so no big deal in the end.

Don’t think he was too bad, should probably have referred the Lineham try up, but then then the use of the video referee in SL is approaching high farce, so may not have made any difference. The RFL seriously need to review the current protocol. At the moment the actual interpretation being used is that to overturn the on-field decision they must have incontrovertible, irrefutable, overwhelming proof, which goes way, way beyond what is reasonable, way beyond the balance of actual evidence, even way beyond what is actually plausible. The result of this is that video referees are confirming on-field decisions that are highly implausible based on the available evidence. It’s just silly, not how a professional sport should work.

I thought Thaler was average at best.

Agree keep the VR but do not let the ref make a decision on it if he is not sure leave it to the VR not the ref