to be honest watching it on sky as a neutral i dont think he was too bad at all. the main contentious decisions were dealt with by thaler. players dont help refs when they are reefing the ball out on the sly etc; some calls they are expected to make are nigh on impossible.

his general control was pretty good, pity about the constant dropping of ball from the players

All you had to do was hold the ball for 30 seconds and you'd have been the hero's of the night .... but when needed to help keep Leeds of our backs you just had to let em score

smith was a disgrace , the donald one made me mad the ref was cleary infront on donald when he knocked the ball on and he said it was backwards , i were frustrated with mathers for leed's first try should at least booted the ball out and conceeded a drop out instead of picking the ball up , reminds me on melli yesterday did the same thing and that led to a try but over all smith was shocking and even leeds fans would agree , were doomed if we get him as ref next week

your clearly right

Agree with everything you say. I think both sets of fans could list decisions that went against us.
Would put Smith's performance into perspective, it wasn't as bad as some of the players he was reffing tonight. Yes, Smith and Thaler made mistakes but I believe that they were honest mistakes. We need to give the guys a break.
Well played tonight I thought we were exceptionally lucky. Best of luck in the semi.

Mathers grounded it first couldn't believe the VR gave the try it had as much downward pressure as Smiths try in the 2nd half ,and the decision on Harrisons try by the VR was a disgrace as well ,to go on and lose by 2pts after that accompanied by Smiths ruling on Donalds blatant knock on and then give a knock on against Vinny Anderson for the exact same thing makes you think it was fixed I wonder if Smith and Thaler have accounts at Bookies ?

Yeah good point. IMO (and ok it might be an old fashioned viewpoint) but grounding the ball shouldn't just mean having a finger anywhere near the ball when it touches the ground. Video replays also make it worse. Watching play at normal speed gives a 'real' indication of whether the ball has been grounded or not. Neither Mathers nor Smith 'grounded' those balls last night.

So when we lose next week,will we be having another refs fault we lost thread?Really makes me laugh some of the comments I see on here.We got more decisions off Smith last night than we have had in the last 4 years (hes 1 ref I keep an eye on whenreffing wire games)

A couple of very relevant facts from last nights game;
1/It is not the refs fault if a team drops the ball or loses position.
2/it is not the refs fault if a manager decides to play a halfback at centre and a forward on the wing.(exposed twice last night,from which came 2 tries)
3/It is not the refs fault if 1 team wants to play for 80 minutes and the other does not.
4/It is not the refs fault if 1 team thinks twice in a match that the game is won and switches off
5/Sky games are notoriously dodgy affairs,where generally the rulebook goes out of the window.
6/Richie Mathers is not the great fullback,many make him out to be.Showed glimpses last night of his head starting to go again.
7/The gulf in class between Saints/Leeds and the rest,remains the same.

So it makes you laugh that someone has created a thread about Ian Smith, and you reply thus by saying "It's not the refs fault that this happened" or this happened, or this happened etc? I'm guessing you don't like it then when someone blames the referee for a defeat.

What I find strange however, is your comment at the end which says "he is one ref I keep an eye on when reffing Wire games". Why is this? If it always makes you laugh when people blame the referee for a defeat, why do you feel the need to scrutinise Smith everytime he referee's Warrington? Shouldn't you be focusing on the game instead of the referee?

Smith was decent. It was fairly obvious from where i was standing. All the wire fans were complaining and when i got home and watched the video then the ref was generally proved right.

People were even complaining about going to the vid ref which is stupid. if it is there then you may aswell use it.

Everyone went mad about Hicks taking 2 bombs and the ref was proved right.

The hicks decision from the kick off was a tough call but his hands were around his feet and you could see it wasn't a clear cut call to make.

My only complains would be Leeds tactics or reefing the ball out on regular ocassion, something hard for the ref to see everytime. and also the vid ref, mather hash and mcguires try were the same thing in my opinion and they should have both been given as grounded or neither be given as grounded.

The Harrison try was a harsh call but Clarke didn't have to be there.

Mathers had absolutly no downwards pressure as the ball was still rolling. Putting your fingers on the ball as it rolls does not count as grounding it. Mcguire grounded the ball as he stopped it moving as it contacted the ground, he pushed it downwards, Mathers brushed against it. And to say the match was fixed was laughable you really think all the desicions went against you?? Take your warrington specs off and watch the game properly.

HTH

I keep an eye on Smith from a betting point of view.Latchfordwolvesfan and les boyd is god know the reasons,of which I dare'nt print on here!
Statistics have stacked up oer the years,though last night we got far more than i was expecting.