We have had Chris Leatherbarrow at Barrow, Keighley, Featherstone, Halifax and now at home to Halifax. He had a good game at all the other matches - in my opinion - on Wednesday he was poor, his touch judges were poor too.
The match commissioner will have submitted a lengthy report on what he personally saw. I notice Matt Thomason was there, Phil Bentham and Richard Silverwood. Apparently Silverwood is a mentor to Chris Leatherbarrow (whatever that means) After watching Thursday's game on tv, it seems Silverwood could do with a mentor too

Personally I don't think that he is a bad ref but made some bad decisions. What gets me is that the Championship is used as a training ground for SL refereeing. The sooner that changes and refs do both or even all three leagues the better. I remember when Ben Thailer and James Childs were refs in our league they were lambasted just the same. There are some bad refs but I think this lad will one day be one of our best.

Is that not what makes a reff bad ?

Not a chance of it happening, super league has six constant refs, and three, ie Leatherbarrow, Stokes and Thomasson who usually get to jostle for the other gig!

They are NOT going to put someone like Silverwood at Hemel v Gateshead , and have some kid doing leeds v Wire are they??

Leatherbarrow is a good referee. When you have men on both sides who left the dressing room proactively looking for a fight there isn't much a referee can do to stop them.

I don't really see what the problem with Championship referees having SL ambitions is, surely it means they will have a far more professional approach. For all the lambasting I really don't think the Australians have it any better, even with two of them. That was quite clear to see throughout the RLWC.