Billy Thompson was the greatest



I remember his last game in charge of the Wires, 1st April 1984 at Odsal.

Wires were clinging on at 19-16 and Bradford crossed in the steps corner in the last minute and Odsal went crazy.
10 seconds later Odsal went Ballistic when they realised Billy had disallowed it.
Billy blew for time and needed a police escort up the 126 or so steps back up to the changing rooms through the baying mob

We have no choice but to accept the referees and their decisions. We might not think they are the best, but they're doing it, not us. Constant bagging the refs is a very poor thing to do and the abuse will not improve them.

Russell Smith.

(obligatory mention on a referee thread)

Talking of Russell Smith and THAT Wigan match. The whole match is is on YouTube for the viewing pleasure.

I skipped to the area where it seemed to be the controversial bit. From what I saw. A certain Paul.Cullen Didn't help matters in that situation. Giving Wigan a further 10 for dissent. I wasn't at the match and I can't bear to watch a losing match back. And it was a bit before my time. So what exactly happened in that match. And then the resulting matching of us 10 metres due to cullens gob.

i have spent 30 years screaming at referees.

all of them are inept.

After he left SL refereeing, RS was asked the question, what was his worst mistake as a ref, he said blowing a penalty against Paul Cullen that effectively cost Warrington the Championship.

Billy Thompson never gave his regrets of disallowing 5 tries vs Hull FC in the 1/4 final CC.

Mike Greg knocked on, Cullen then(according to Smith),went in with his knees on the Wigan player who pounced on the ball. From what I remember it was jiffy who gave Smith a gobful for the extra 10 metres. Not that the 10 metres mattered, seeing Wigan had a certain frano botica playing for them. The game was decided as soon as Smith blew for that penalty.

Dead right. Everyone ought to try reffing (any sport) whilst at school. It's not easy.

That was the one, he later must’ve that game back and saw that Cullen hadn’t touched him with him with his knees. His error robbed us of the Championship.
Yes it was JD who appealed colourfully.
It took him until interviewed years later to admit it.

I don't think Jiffy's gob was the turning point, that metronomic sod Botica would've kicked it from anywhere anyway.

The referee's have a tough job. They get all calls wrong, for one side or the other. The people I am more concerned about are the MRP. They dissect each game in minute detail. They make a decision who to charge and subsequently make a decision on the offenders penalty. The problem is there is no consistency. Reckless, careless, dangerous are bandied about in their minutes. Whether they forget most people record TV games and can go back and compare I'm not sure. Looking on various boards here you can read that many fans compare tackles in the same game that are the same tackle. However, when you read the minutes one player reads to be one step away from being a total thug, whilst another player is seen to have unfortunate circumstances and nearly taking someone's head off wasn't really his fault.