And we all know you're the most one-eyed Salford fans out there who always sees fault with the referee. If you're really blaming the ref for us defending so badly at times in that second half then I give up, I really do.

I've had a look at the stats and d'you know what? Bentham didn't knock on once, gave away zero penalties and didn't miss a single tackle all night. Impressive stuff from the shiny domed Warringtonian.


Also, I couldn't quite see what was going on at the end - the posts were blocking my view. Did Stapleton get a red card after the final whistle? I saw Bentham go to the back pocket, but didn't see what happened after that.

Yep it was after the end of the game. Stapo was actually on the bench and when the hooter went he walked back onto the pitch towards the players and made a comment as Bentham walked past him to leave the field. Bentham then tried to call him over but he ignored him and walked away. Someone finally managed to get him back over to the referee who then sent him off.

All i am saying is fatigue beat us in the end because you use more energy defending than you do attacking, the referee manufactured the results with the decitions he made.

for what its worth cats actual tries were class and im not upset about our lack of defence when the trys were scored, what upset me was the non-penalties given by the referee allowing catalan territory,position and possession to build pressure to score from

Rugby league is all about building pressure on your opposion and having forward momentum, teams get that by good play by proffessionals who make every set count and very rarely have a non-set ( a standard 5 drive 1 man up no support and a kick?)

When your not playing so well or you dont have the quality of player to make every set count penalties become very important, salford imo are in this category.

How many times do we say we struggle to get out of our 20m? It more than usual its virtually every set, turn it round how many times do you see salford pin opponants in their 20M and dont let them out, very rare because we get too excited get caught offside, give a penalty away in the tackle or we miss a tackle.
That is our problem staying focused and not giving silly pens or winning penalties when under pressure or building pressure because referees will give them .

Next time you see a penalty given see what happens in the next 2 sets, good teams score, superleague class teams will get a repeat set or pin there opponants in their 20, penalties are a massive part of our game to change a flow of a game.

Back to catalan game we couldnt clear our lines because we kept getting penalised with the ball and not getting the 50/50 calls, so we are defending repeat after repeat sets zapping our energy giving catalan ball, position and possession and it was only a matter of time, we were lucky we lasted so long to be honest because catalan were camped in our red zone for so long with so many tackles in the bank it was only our fantastic efforts in defence that kept them out until 2 mins to go.

If we had got one of them 50/50 penalties or were able to complete a set taken away by a penality we would have defused the pressure and put us further up the field.

As for being one eyed, i feel i have mellowed with age i find myself spotting alker forward passes and jewitt highshots now and calling them, you wouldnt know this cos your in your jeb end.
All i want is consistancy.

The problem with refereeing our game is two-fold. The game is sometimes so quick that the officials are not always in the right positions to make adequate calls. This leads to the second problem which is that they have to guess what happened. An example from Friday was a second half penalty Bentham gaveto Catalans for stripping. I was watching from the North Stand and Three players were involved in the tackle and no way on gods earth could Bentham see what actually happened. The ball came loose so Bentham gave the decision based on probability. This kind of thing goes on throughout all SL games. Its not a critisism of Refs as we have to have them but Linesmen are under-used and maybe the powers that be can find a way of involving them more. As for technology well im afraid even now that still hasent put an end to controversy has it (yes i still fume at the Hull game some seasons back) All in all Refs do not drop balls or miss tackles but we can see how inconsistancy from officials can influence games, crucial in a sport that is essentially territory based.

All of that is contradicted by your other comment below

So the referee manufactured the result and gave non-penalties against us because we were offside, or something in the tackle to give away a penalty? Or the referee manufactured the result because we missed a tackle?



Yeah, because you were dead mellow and everything at Warrington, weren't you? It's all well and good seeing forward passes and high shots - every team gets away with those in every game - but complete nonsense such as the drivel above just points to it being easier to blame officials for results rather than just being able to hold our hands up and say "look, we f*cked up second half, Catalans came good. Get on with it."

As for the comment about where I stand these days... That almost sounds like a dig. But never mind.

Right, on that note I'm turning the internet off for a day or so. Have fun, children.

I thought we did ok on Friday. First half it looked as though Catalans turned up expecting, rather having to perform for the win. Take no credit from ourselves though, I thought Stapleton, Ratchford and Smith in particular were really good.

Second half Catalans had obviously been given a bollocking and turned it up a few notches, and as a result, showed why they are near the play-offs, and we are second to bottom.

This however was our best performance since the first half against Wire, and it's definitely something we should carry forward to the game @ Quins.

Also, kudos to Mcrae for mixing things up a bit, I thought we looked much fresher with Fitzy in and a few changes in formation.

Gutted to lose, but overall happy with the commitment and performance.

I actually thought that made us look suspect in defence, unable to take an attacking kick on the full, and suicidal when passing across to Wilshire right in front of our own sticks on the frst tackle.

Wigan, Saints, Leeds use the forward/flat pass a lot and get away with it, I see on Saturday Morley was penalised for pulling back the centre something he got away with against us.

At the end of the day the Table doesn't lie.

At the semi final on Sunday, fans were booing the ref non stop second half. As a neutral. I couldn't see what they were on about.

We just can't go on blaming referees. Yes, some decisions at times may be questionable, but get real. We simply aren't good enough.

If this had been a relegation season, we'd have been down long ago, way adrift in fact.......IT'S BEEN A SHOCKER!!!!

RR he missed quite a few high shots and forward passes, but other than that he had a good game.

He had a game and we copped some shocking decisions but in the end our unprofessionalism led to the defeat however bad BENT-ham
was