At the moment were all a bit aggrieved at what we think went on. What the officials need to do now is calm down and review the game minute by minute and establish exactly why it all went wrong. Was it the players, was it the officials, was it something else?

No matter how bad the referee was, it is embarrassing to blame him for the trouble.

The fans involved in causing the trouble, no matter which team they are supporting, need to be punished heavily. No place at all for that behaviour in our great game.

But quite simply, they won’t. They are incapable of putting two and two together and seeing that what went on during the game, thanks in a large part to their referee, is partly to blame for the way the fans behave.

They will close rank and not question his conduct whatsoever. It’s not even worth kicking up a stink. We know he was dreadful and allowed that game to descend into shambolic territory but they won’t see that and just think we’re taking the old fashioned line of blaming the referee like a pantomime villain, rather than seeing that our own side was inept in most departments (including discipline) and they will just say we got what we deserved.

For the record I think saddened was partly right, but for me, I saw a wire side try to match Catalans for grubbiness and come off second best. We try that every so often and come off worse with more penalties. Unlike cats and Wigan we don’t have the nouse to do it and get away with it, we just become a penalty machine and throw games away. I don’t think it’s a Steve Price trait, just that we don’t have the intensity to do it cleverly when it is actually called for.

Anyway to recap, you will see Child in charge of a fixture next weekend with no reprimand or comeback from today’s utter show.

Theres no excuse from our fans at all and nobody can defend it, and i hope they ban the lot of them. Yes the refereeing was an absolute disgrace and catalans got away with a lot of e tonight and if the game and alot of players don't get reviewed afterwards that will be a disgrace aswell. High shots from both sides intentional or not and the discipline was . I thought we would lose today and Austin getting injured means at least he will get a rest and i hope it's just a sprain and he gets a week off. Our Skill level has completely disappeared yet we don't even have a strong enough pack to muscle our way through games. I've no idea what's gone wrong but we are absolutely getting worse as the season goes one.

We could meet shatalans in the play offs..that will be fun...

Read his post. He made a distinction between what was taking place on the pitch and what went on in the stands. He says that the standard of officiating didn’t help, he’s not directly correlating the two things and blaming the referee for it.

This thread should be about the standard of the on field officiating full stop.

I have read it both here and on the virtual terrace and in both its a low and grubby attempt at deflection.

Have you read it..

James Child hang your head in shame - you created all that.

It caused all the second half fighting, it caused the fighting in the stands.


He has literally defused responsibility from players keeping their head and fans.
It was all caused by a ref.

Very low attempt at spinning a narrative.

Laughable! If you can't control yourself in the stands (or your sofa) no matter what happens on the pitch you need sectioning!

I stopped taking you serious at this point. What a load of rubbish. It's a game at the end of the day & if you get so unhinged at things like this you have no place in a civil society.

You need to win 2 out of your last 5 games if you don't you might not be playing anyone in the play offs................it would be all over.

That's why I said could..

As a Neutral, i posted well before the end, that we should be watching a top class rugby match, NOT the James Child show, his constant and shouting, and whistle blowing for petty misdemeanours was sheer lunacy. It was obvious he would lose control of the game, the crowd trouble was auwful, Women and kids subjected to that was inexcusable, no one can condone that, but the players and Childs have to shoulder some blame.

Yes, but we know your could was meant to be outside 2nd place when mathematically but unlikely you could go 6th.


On the ref topic, on the Friday night we had the worse referee so far this season with head shots, off sides and lying on galore, our Captain in Roby approached the ref with respect unlike Captain "Burst a blood Vessel" Smith.

Wasn't meant to come across as that but seeing as you know a lot about sod all we.ll leave it there...as for your point about captains I totally agree..but you do have players chirping in the refs ear..

And this is why it's not the refs fault.

You say he gave too many penalties causing the issue.
Others said he let too much go causing the issue.

He did none of the foul play and he did not storm the ramparts.