I'm not sure that Bentham did have a good game. I think our discipline was much better than of late and the lack of large numbers of penalties made the game flow much better.

However, I think he tried really hard to penalise us and there were several instances where he gave penalties for extemely minor issues, one in particular which gave them the position to score one of their second half tries was plucked completely out of the air and despite watching it again I can't work out what it was for.

Of course there were the ball stealing incidents which happen in all games which all refs get right sometimes and wrong sometimes but what about missing the saints player going behind the dead ball line and the "tackle" by KC on Tommy. That was far worse then the Farrel incident in the cup against leeds for which the infamous yellow card was awarded. Of course one wasn't awarded yesterday.

No, IMO he was still poor yesterday - his error count was very high on the decicions he had to make, it was the good discipline of both teams took the heat off him.

Even Cullen in Boots' n' All was criticising the awarding of Warrington's first try against Bradford - he would have disallowed it for obstruction, but Bentham (apparently from Warrington) gave the try. Just as bad as Ganson giving St.helens their final try against Salford when he was obviously held up over the line. Neither of these were 50/50 calls but 95/5 calls ( the 5 being Warrington or Saints fans!!)

No ref should be allowed to officiate (as ref or video ref) at his hometown club - to try and avoid accusations of bias. Refs make mistakes, but if they are neutral then they are more likely to be viewed as "honest" mistakes by fans of both teams.

Bentham is from Leigh (he lives in Warrington)

There is no bias, refs hate all clubs / players equally. That's why they become refs in the first place

Salfords first try in that game included an obvious knock on and then a forward pass where Holdsworth (IIRC) just drops it in front of Matty Smith to kick it on. That was given by Ganson when it went to the screen (and before you say it I know you can't go to the screen for a forward pass)

Thought Bentham had a good game tonight in the Sky Huddersfield v Hull KR game. Let the game flow and it was entertaining. Actually thought he wasn't too bad against Saints ( the touch judge awarding a penalty to Saints when Carmont was penalised with Wigan in possession was for me the crucial game changing moment as Saints scored twice in 5 minutes after that, including a 50/50 video ref call for Meli's try). The controversial decisions/calls were again by the video ref - very difficult and either might have been judged to be a penalty try. On balance, though, knock-on for 1st and penalty for 2nd were marginally the correct decisions!

Let's just pray that Ganson gives us a fair crack of the whip tomorow ...!!

Since when?

I dabbled a bit with refereeing a few years ago and every referee in my society had a favourite team and most went to games as supporters when not officiating - a few of those people are now officials within SL and Championship level at present.

Not to say they are biased, but to detach an initial love of watching the game and / or an individual team as one of the reasons why they ultimately become referees in the first place is way wide of the mark and idealistic at best.

What a complete goon, refereeing a game is the hardest thing to do, you need the eyes of a fly to see everything! All referee, no matter what level they officiate at, have a favourite team. people become ref's because they ant to be part of the game, not to be bias!
now do me a favour and go and follow wendyball, for all our sakes!