Thaler is a waste of space ,tanned poser !!

We need to complete our sets.

The sooner TS gets that in his head, the better.

Good game to begin the weekend, hardly anything between the two teams. With Ratchford I think you would have sneaked it!

Hill played well as usual, awesome prop!

Actually thought Thaler had a decent game from a neutral point of view barring the first of the high shots which I think should have been a yellow. I think it looked worse than it actually was, it was a flailing arm rather than a swing and it hits the shoulder on initial contact. Nothing much in the second shot, penalty that is all.

Agree that Penny showed plenty of bottle but him being so light weight didn't help you at all. He was man handled almost every carry and lost the ruck meaning a slow play the ball whereas Dugan won 70%+ of the rucks.

The constant flopping caused the slow ruck. Never seen so many flops. Great game though and no arguments with the result - we didn't respect the ball enough...crazy offload by atkins

First high should have been a red, especially as St G man was well beaten and had to dive to get any contact, whether shoulder or head first. Second one just a penalty as it did hit shoulder first and Marshall wasn't trying to connect dangerously as, in my view, first one was.

Thought Penny was very good all round (attack and defence) and not sure Warrington lost because of throwing the ball around. They lost more ball in the tackle and should have changed from high kicks which it seemed St G had under control.

Thalers performance tonight, when it came to the KEY decisions was spineless and embarrassing. Like Tony said at the end of the Sky interview, he feels for Ah Van after the punishment he was given. No consistency.

Appears that the refs have been told to just let the games go, Wigan will have fun tomorrow with Waynes cause havoc tactics

Was thinking something similar Geordie. It could get very messy tomorrow night if the precident has been set.

I get the feeling there'll be a call from Red Hall to be a bit more stringent (referee wise).
Although he let the game flow (no bad thing), he got the BIG decision WRONG. The ref is there to oversee and apply the rules. Not to be a fence sitter

Yes, Thaler was very poor when it came to the head tackles. There is a big difference between letting the game flow and simply failing to officiate it. The game could easily have boiled over - and that would have been down to him.

As for the game, yeah it was good to watch, fairly close, great atmosphere, but you can not make that many mistakes against an Aussie team and expect to win.

Unusual to see Joel have an off day. Harrison was excellent both in attack and defence, as was Benny. Wheels is going to cause some grief to SL sides if we can keep him fit. Laithwaite and Evans worked really hard. Nice cameo try from GOB and some good kicking I thought as well. Myler was...well... we will gloss over that. Simms was great, he put his whole heart into that match - you couldn't ask for more. Hill immense as per usual.

Enjoyed that.

I gathered pretty quick that the refs must have been under instruction to just play out the game, i'm glad he did, i wanted us to face St George at full strength with all the bells and whistles, personally i'd like to say thank you to Thaler for reffing it old school, no farting about just brutal rugby.

By SL standards he was abysmal but by the standards i think they should be, belter of a game from BT.
Possibly a yellow for the first but that's it.

Thaler didn't 'let the game flow', he watched St. G flop and lay on in almost every tackle and did nothing.

If this is standard for this WCS then we'll be lucky to get two full sets of 6 in the 80 minutes tomorrow at Wigan...

With one ref you'll always get that

When you see the side on camera angle of the second incident, you'll change your mind as to whether it was 'nothing'. Remember it was this same player who then went on to set up the winning try.

If your attitude is win at all costs, i can understand your frustrations, but i just wanted a 13 v 13 contest v an NRL side, i loved it, glad people stayed on and i'm actually one of the few who enjoyed the way the game was reffed.

I understand what your saying Yed, but the rules on head high tackling are pretty clear. Anyway, when all said and done I'm proud of the way we played tonight (Thaler or not) just a pity we couldn't see it through. Fantastic atmosphere tonight.

Well, if that's what it takes to make a game flow, God help us.
What message is that ref performance sending out?
Aussie appeasers all our refs ... never send an Aussie off, they will take their ball home.
Better up the player insurance after that ... it's hunting season!
Shameful!
No ref should go into a game with a rigid view of 'no penalties'..
He should ref the game as he actually sees it, not lower his standards to avoid penalties.

And all this coaching cum advisory service the refs pursue is bullocks.
If they are infringing, don't warn until you've penalised them.

Warrington spilled to much to win, but that doesn't excuse Thaler.

Spot on

7-2 penalty count i think?

6-2. Should have been more.

Not to mention how Thaler gave St. G a penalty near the end for interfering at the ruck with Atkins. I guess that was the perfect end to his useless non-officiating of every ruck for the preceding 70 minutes.

I can see a case for yellow cards but to be fair the game is rugby not football, don't we watch it for the contact and aggression.

Thaler was ok in my opinion.

The simple fact is you were garbage and came out cold at the start of both halves.

Garbage? Really? bit strong that, below par yes but very very far off garbage.

Warrington really can't complain about the ref. It took until the 72nd minute for St George to receive their first penalty. If anything, they had controlled the majority of the game to that point. As mentioned there were plenty of chances for Thaler to give pedantic penalties for flopping, but if you look at them closely, they were all when the defenders were dominant. Sure he missed a few things, like the knock on against Atkins late on when it was pushed out, but on the whole it was a refreshing performance from him. If he'd have given the first high shot as a yellow I think he could go home happy.

I thought the one on Penny was dangerous irregardless of a hand making contact with the shoulder. Both of the st george players feet were off the floor, he was almost horizontal. There may have been no intent but dangerous tackles have to be penalised. But for grace we could be talking about the end of Penny's career or worse had he landed awkwardly.

We remove the perfectly good shoulder charge for being dangerous and then things like that go completely unpunished.

Other than that i had no issues with how the game was refereed.

What a ridiculous statement, i think you would be very hard pressed to find a fan of any club agreeing with you.

Did Wire make some bad decisions and silly errors at crucial times? yes. Couldn't fault the effort,physicality and desire throughout though, the game was a top advert for RL.

I suppose we can look forward to a masterclass by Wigan later on? jolly good