Just watched the game on tv for the first time this morning. I don't know if this has already been mentioned but I am very disappointed with what was said by Jonathan Davies and that know-nothing horse riding woman. They seemed to just concentrate on possible referee mistakes and how unlucky Leeds were. It was even said that they "should" have won. Were they watching a different game? We blew them away in the first 30mins and "should" have been more points ahead but we weren't and that's just the nature of the sport. To top it off Jonathan Davies even said Ryan Hall should have been Lance Todd winner!

What game were the BBC team watching? The one day our sport gets proper national tv coverage to show the rest of the country what the sport is all about and they end up concentrating on the negatives. That's not to say they didn't have some valid points but their lack of balanced coverage and their focus on mistakes by players and officials did our sport no favours at all. I (almost) find myself thinking we would have been better of with stevo and eddie's analysis, at least they would appreciate the fact that there were flashes of brilliance played in this game!

Don't get me started on Balding & Davies


*facepalm*

If only we had Phil Clark yesterday giving a totally unbiased opinion

I’m sure we can come to some middle ground in concluding that the game as a whole is in some kind of crises at the moment on the field. Even watching NRL fulltime I saw blatant forward passes a lot worse than the ones we have over here.

The rugby league media unfortunately is monopolised by experienced hands and that’s why they go on like they do - no competition to deliver the best service for the fans. At this rate Gary Schofield will replaced Stevo when he retires from commentating it’s that bad! Things will get better though.

I also said that I thought the 'Leeds fest' was poor form. It seemed they had to pad out the time and concentrated on Mr Bitter 2 and his ridiculous anti-media rant. Thank fook we got Madge and Leeds got McDermott!!

The same one everybody but Wigan fans were watching. I agree with the BBC team as do a lot of fans. For 60 minutes Leeds were the better team and there were four terrible decisions against them that turned the match. Two of your tries should never have been: the one from a blatant forward pass and the last one, which came as a direct result of a wrong decision by that idiot Bentham. And to top off a match with many poor decisions, Lima was given the Lance Todd. I don't know what the guys were drinking but the two who voted for him instead of Burrow must have been well plastered.

In terms of a contest, from about 20 minutes in it was probably the best Challenge Cup final so far at the new Wembley. You were two very evenly matched sides.

Any chance that the ball played charnley?

I don't normally respond to threads like this but am making an exception on this occasion. I have watched the game 3 times now and it was a really good game in terms of viewing but YES the officials did not have their best games. YES - Lee Mossop's pass was forward. It is not uncommon for this to happen as i never expect linesmen to give these. Being a season ticket holder and watching A LOT of rugby league both in UK and Oz there are so many forward passes let go i just accept it. And i would have accepted if Leeds had score from one which they did (marginally but still i feel one was forward - not bothered though, let it go). YES - the ball into touch for the Leuluai try came of Josh and not Burrow so it should not have been Wigan ball. A mistake by the officials. But leading up to (i think) Leeds' second try Carl Ablett didn't play the ball correctly. He put the ball down befre he stood up, rolled it between his legs whilst falling over. If this was interference fair enough penalty Leeds. If not, penalty Wigan for incorrect play the ball. Either way an error was made and the officials missed it/let it go.

Calls went both ways and sometimes that happens. If the shoe was on the other foot, i would accept it. I would be gutted my team lost but i would accept it as there are lots of decisions go on every week for all teams that i think are wrong and there always will be.

Leeds are not a bad team (although Bailey is a complete ar$e!!!) and i think they have some great players and were unlucky not to win on the day. Stats show a very close game with Wigan marginally on top in terms of tackles made, etc.

I must say in my experience yesterday the fans from both teams (and neutrals) were brilliant. Great banter, no trouble (that i saw) and a really enjoyable day out.

Wish football fans would learn something from rugby fans!

P.S - being also a huge rugby union fan (at odds with most of this board i know ), and a Welsh one at that i normally like Jonathon Davies but yesterday he came across a complete ar$e (i'd love to go stronger but don't want to offend!!!) and i have developed a serious dislike for him. Boiling down 80 minutes of rugby in which one team won by 10 points to one ref call was an embarrassment!

The whole comp has been disgracefully broadcast this year by the BBC! Poor!

Now if you don't mind, can someone pass me a ladder to climb down from my soapbox?

A very well put and accurate post andykel, as a neutural i think there's been to much talk of the ref decisions and not about what a very exciting game it was played by two very good side's and a fantastic try by Tomkins, well done on the win, from a leyther.

If you dissect every set of six tackles in RL, you could pull both teams up at least once on some infringement or other, if not every tackle/play the ball at times. The Lima try pass was forward, you could argue Leeds had one in the build up to a try and the scoring pass was also forward. The games fast and I would guess all of us would get calls wrong? Leeds first was try was off a dodgy play the ball......... in my oppinion. The Charnley one, again with this being my oppinion was the correct call. Charnley played at the ball and missed Burrow then comes in and plays at it to clear the danger, it then hits Charnley who makes no play at it, Wigan ball? We watched this like Jiffy did in slow motion that all happend in under a second, easy to call? well in my oppinion the touchy got it spot on, Jiffy even with slow-mo got it wrong. The penalty count was 5 to 2 in Leeds favour I thought Leeds split on more than two occassions and also stood off side on at least one tackle in every set, I am of co bias. Can anyone honestly say that Leeds by the letter of the law only gave away two penalties in that game? Wigan who probably infringed the same as Leeds gave away five. The Ref was obviously one sided

Good job we made the other 20 min count then "hey" , but your opinion doesn't count anyway as shown by your appraisal of last years Grand Final; which in your view (mind ) you actually won

Did'nt hear endless discussion about Charnley having his arm under the ball for Hall's try, Ganson got that one wrong.
Could'nt believe Davies in the studio, I'm convinced he must have had £10 grand on Leeds,talk about bias, give me slaphead and wiggy anyday.

the coverage was crap,
ive never seen a more depressed pannel and angry coverage of a cup final ever,
there was no positive media about it at all, every 1 seems angry,