Maybe it does mean that - by your own admission above, and by the fairplay measure, they are playing against the fairest in t' land....maybe it rubs off?

It may also mean that, because no Quins/Broncos team I have watched in the last 12 years has ever dominated rucks and 'contacts' sufficiently to either rattle opponents or to force the error, we are unable to force teams to concede penalties. Too good for our own, er, good? I have made it a point of measuring the distance between the first point of contact ie where the tackle first commences and the last point of contact ie where the tackle concludes - the distance is either a positive or a negative one.

Invariably we dont come out of it too good, either defensively or offensively, and more often than not the opposition will make yards in the contact and we do not - this allows one team to dominate and win the collision, forcing or conceding penalties as a result. It is often the case even when we've won games.........it tells me we win games because of factors other than winning the collision but I dont think we have enough mongrel or c**t to stop, slow and bully teams around. I think the fairplay stats bear this out - we're too 'nice' so don't give away penalties and we're not 'mean' enough to force opponents to concede penalties. Just a theory of mine and certainly not fact, but worth considering I think....


That Quins get some hard calls is not in dispute, but it does go both ways by and large and even when it doesn't it's not down to bias or birthplace or domicile. Who knows - maybe teams feel the 'bonding' effect having been on the coach with each other longer than normal for this fixture, compared to others.....?

I would be more than happy to accept that a very large reason for this is lack of vociferous home support sub-consciously affecting the refereees but, once again, that's not bias or corrupt officials or referees favouring home town teams or anything like that. Human nature maybe....?

Thought Thaler was fine today. You can always find a few things to disagree about with the ref but I thought he did a good job. Not sure that Danny Brough would agree though.

Certainly did from where I was sat!

yep....dan marino would have been proud of that pass. 2 yards forward and 15 feet from the touch judge who must have seen it, but did nothing.

In general thought Thaler was ok yesterday.

Thought he was sub-standard, forward pass and all, but didnt think in the end he was as bad as i expected

I thought he was awful but that doesn't matter as we won. The forward pass IMO was a joke that has to been seen

yeah he awarded a knock on when it was ripped out by two in the tackle.
He didnt see it as he had his back turned.
All he saw was a loose ball.

After watching it again on SLTV I have to say, it is pretty flat I think it looked forward because of the angle he ran, but I have to say now the ref got that call right.

There was a strange incident in the first half when he actually played the second knock-on rather than the first.