Yet later on he sent another up to the video ref and said " try I HAVE SEEN IT ON THE LINE" when it got nowhere near the line and silverwood who by now must have put his spectacles on overturned it, as it at no point got near the line.

An on-field ref has to make an instant decision. In that situation, yes I think it's perfectly reasonable for a ref to think the ball touched the ground.

Yes, I think it's unreasonable, in fact I think it's unacceptable for a video ref, with access to numerous video clips, slow mo etc to see a video of the ball NEVER touching the ground, to give that as a try. The 2 situations are completely different.
The video was not inconclusive. It was 100% conclusive. You could see the ball, at all times, above the ground.


Silverwood did see that view, because he was looking at the same video as is shown on tv live. He was commenting on the same video I, and everybody else was seeing.

It was a monumental cockup from Silverwood and had nothing to do with Child.

Given the stupid rule that forces the ref to guess on a decision before he refers it, Child did nothing wrong; he was unsighted, so he went with what looked like from his angle, a common sense interpretation. For Silverwood to fail to see what everyone else did - that it was never anywhere near grounded - is totally unacceptable.

this has long since been a bug bear of mine over the video ref, as we've seen on sky in the past, they very often only look at two angles, 3 at best rather than making use of all cameras, you heard silverwood say, have we got anything else, obviously someone from the bbc was shaking his head at him, only for 15 minutes later, look we've got the camera shot from all the way down the field.

I occasionally wonder if it's done deliberately on sky so eddie et al can maintain their continued faux outrage at 'ANYTHING'

Yep I agree with that. We've often seen that situation where Sky suddenly find another camera angle to those that were shown to the VR.

However in this case the long shot from behind was shown to Silverwood and he even commented on the shot that showed the ball above the ground at all times. Yet bizarrely he stuck to the "can't see" line that, going by his comments, it seemed as if he was determined to use as soon as he started. IIRC his very first comments were something along the lines of "can't see what happens. Well it's been sent up as a try." After only a few seconds of looking at just 1 camera shot. He seemed determined that he couldn't see what happened and so wasn't looking properly at the other shot from behind.

As others have said, it's inexcusable. Ben Thaler got demoted for a week after trying to help the walking, talking Monty Python sketch that is Thierry Alibert reach a not batsh|t decision in Catalans. By comparison this is far worse and at least on a par with the Ganson VR decision in the Hull derby game that spelled the end of his career.

That's an interesting one - maybe the mishandling of that situation has spooked the officials; if the best ref in the comp can be demoted for trying to save Mr Alibert from himself, I guess that would have an unsettling effect on the others.

I also noted that Silverwood's narrative from the second he got the referral, sounded like he was attempting to justify agreeing with the on-field call, rather than arriving at the correct decision. Maybe they've all been given the hard word about showing a united front in the face of increasing criticism by coaches and players?

Good point, hadn't thought of it in that way.

That's not correct. Silverwood saw two angles - one in front, and one from behind. The one from behind the play he saw was obscured slightly by a Salford player (Lui I think). The longer shot that clearly, unequivocally shows the ball not hitting the ground only seemed to emerge about 20mins later - it wasn't shown to Silverwood in the decision making.

Not to defend Silverwood. He knows there is a camera there (there always is), he should have asked for that angle before making his decision.

The camera shot he saw from behind, despite a players foot in the way, clearly showed the ball still above the floor. He was just determined from the start that his view would be obscured.

These 2 screenshots are the lowest the ball the ever gets to the ground in the shot from behind that Silverwood saw. The ball is clearly visible and clearly above the ground.

The on-field referee decided it was a try.
To over-rule this, the video ref had to be certain that, at no point, did the ball touch the ground.
As there were points when his view of the ball was blocked, the video ref could not be certain that, at those moments, the ball was not put onto the ground.
Of course, this would assume Solomona has wizardry in his fingertips and sorcery in his blood. But the video ref can't categorically disprove this either, so the try stands.

That's pretty much what I said halfway down pg 6 , but there are plenty of "differing" opinions .....

In the immediate review after the 'Try' was 'scored', Silverwood did not have the super zoom. He watched the incident on two different angles, twice. The one from the opposite end of the ground (where the super zoom later came from I think) CLEARLY shows the ball never hitting the floor (or even getting within inches). This is without the need for the super-zoom. We all have our own opinions on Jiffy but he was spot on when he stated it was never a try - one thing is for sure, he has half decent vision.

Milner then gets awarded an on-field 'Try' from Childs, which Silverwood correctly deems to be "clearly short" and so over-rules him.

Why he could not have stated on the first instance that the ball is 'Clearly in the air, no try', well only he can tell you that. I assume/ hope he will be available for comment at a Championship 1 ground this weekend...

Yes, but you were serious.

Spot on, as i said previously, without a VR, child would have probably given the try based on his view ( or those of his touch/in-goal judges) at the time.
Subsequent replays would show that he got it wrong, but yet, i imagine, or would hope that most fans (even though one set would feel aggrieved) would accept that he had a second or 2 to make a decision based on what he sees at the time.
Silverwood, didn't, he had numerous camera angles, slow motion replays and more importantly, time to make the correct decision, he failed, not Child.