The point I'm making is that it is expicitly stated what the touch judge SHALL do and that doesn't include indicating forward passes. Now I completely agree that a good referee will use his touch judges to assist, but there is no scope for a touchie to wave his flag after seeing a forward pass.

As reffy pointed out, the ref "MAY" take into account advice from the touch judge not "MUST"

All in all the powers of the touch judge are very limited and having listened over the years to spectators
yelling for them to do something (usually shouting "linesman" of course) it seems that a large percentage of fans do not know the rules regarding touch judges

Did team not play to the rules and got beaten.

I suggest that if players played to the rules, and actually understood them , then the penalty count would be minimal.

However this is professional sport and if you think you can get away with it then you will try. If caught then accept it and don't behave like a spoiled brat.

It's always the players that break the rule, can't the whingers see this?

Are you a ref yourself? Have you read the article? It's reflects very poorly on the match officials and the RFL. Cunningham alleges Sharp acknowledges that the decisions he's complaining about are incorrect, but cannot make the officials accountable as he only has FIVE full time officials. He's accepting there is a problem but stating he doesn't have the resources to do anything about it.

The very nature of competitive sport means that players will always seek to gain an advantage and infringe on the rules of the game. No one in the game would mind being penalised when they break the rules, Cunningham is fine with that. What he's not okay with is other teams doing exactly the same and not being penalised.

The officiating in SL is an absolute mess.

Think it's. Cunningham and Sts who an absolute mess at the moment. First he blames his players and now the refs. Perfect officiating is unacheivable, so you coach players not to give the ref any excuses. Unfortunately, Sts gave Child's loads of reasons to penalise them.

So did Catalans though, and they weren't treated the same. Read the article, Sharp agrees with Cunningham, just claims he cannot do anything about it.

He talks some sense, but directing it all at Les Cats diminishes the argument somewhat - it looks again like sour grapes.

Either way, I expect that Cunningham's cosy chats with 'Sharpy' will come to an abrupt end, given that he's quoted him saying some fairly damning things about the RFL's administration of match officials.

If the consensus is that all decisions have to be given by the ref with minimal advice from touch judges ,in goal etc then why have so many. May as well do away with a couple of them and have an extra ref in there . Only issue would be if one ref saw it one way and the other ref disagreed ,then we have scissors , paper , stone to resolve. Iamagine that on the big screen

As one of the major officiators it would seem incrongruent for touch judges whom are frequntly in line with play not to signal to the referee for forward passes, I mean they don't really bother with offsides at the scrum or much else for that matter. To ensure consistancy/better calls why wouldn't you use them for any/all infringements and decisions?

The last time a touch judge interacted with a ref via mic was to ask if he could go for a wee wee.

Don't believe even for a second that Sharp "agrees with Cunningham" on most of what he whinges.

Starting with the "forward pass", when Sky showed it from all angles, especially the view from the posts, it was not by any means clear cut. The linesman was right in line with it and regardless of his right to have an input in general play, here a try was scored so the ref is obliged to check with each touch judge. The touchie clearly didn't have a problem with the pass and he was in line whereas no camera was.

All this "we got penalized but they did EXACTLY THE SAME yet weren't penalised" is just childish guff. No two incidents are exactly the same. As for being offside, there could be a hundred penalties a game for that, but (rightly) the refs do not penalise most offsides because they judge that they do not materially affect the play. If the ball came the way of an offside player and he got involved in the tackle he would be penalised but if it goes the other way, he wouldn't.

"Consistency" is a frequent mantra but it is 95% of the time the team on the wrong end of the penalty count and the loser that whinges about inconsistency. People can feel a ref is inconsistent but that does not mean they are right. Why would a ref judge offside, for example, differently for one side, than he does for the other? Unless you go so far as to allege deliberate cheating, which is paranoid bat loony, I would say the ref's faculties will apply in the same way for all incidents over 80 minutes.

Of course on occasion a ref will have a mare. So will players, or any sportsman. But to suggest that, overall, there is some sort of institutional incompetence or worse is just paranoid nonsense. The refs in the Championship are noticeably less good than those in SL - but the that's to be expected, isn't it?

I would say the fact is that - the odd controversial incident inevitably apart - the refs do a very good job over 80 minutes, getting decisions right probably in excess of 99%, and watching pretty much any game as a neutral should convince any reasonable viewer of that.

I think the refs do a decent job but that they could be better. The system that they come up through and the full time ref system needs more money put into it and I don't see why part time ref's can't take SL games alongside the full time ones.
I also think ref's need longer in each "stage" of the refereeing ladder before moving on to the next.
We also need a 2 ref's system to help police the incredibly difficult area of the tackle and the play the ball.

The ref's are better than ever (though I think they accept too much dissent) but with super slow mo replays of every incident their "mistakes" are highlighted far more than ever before.