Agree with all of that.

He gave a few questionable decisions but it's how you react to them, Wigan being soft defensively and conceding tries directly after the decisions is what cost you more than the referee.

Huddersfield had the far stronger bench and that really told in the end.

That was very important, we had Taylor on the bench who is quality but after that it was Burke who's been out injured, James who I don't really know what he offers and seems way off the pace, and Hampshire who tbh was a bit of a luxury to have on the bench in a game like that, we'd have probably been better off going with 4 forwards and having someone like Sutton there instead.

I thought Burke went pretty well and was glad to see him back. I agree about James though, he looks like an old bloke who's been drafted in to the team at the last minute because half of the team have broke down in their minibus on the motorway. He's got a big heart but his legs just haven't got the energy to do the things he needs to.

Talk of his deal being extended in to next year simply can't be true. He came as a coach and that's what he should be doing.

I'm suprised no one has yet mentioned Crabtree's elbow. It was a pretty nasty one. Straight contact with the head and his left arm not the right which was carrying the ball. Should get a match or two IMO.

Some very bad calls last night and most annyingly the lack of consistancy, if the video ref is going to be used it should be all decisions where the ref is unsighted. Not the laughable knock or the no try for obstruction when O'loughlin didn't even move from the PTB.

ferres in particular was being a dirty sod last night though, trying to pull Bowens head off after he scored and maliciously taking out Bateman when he didn't have the ball simply wasn't needed. That and crabtree running elbow first.

Overall the ref turned the game and hudds took full advantage; it wasn't the refs fault we kept dropping the ball.

The ref was poor but we were poorer, time to prepare for the bigger game next week

Did anyone notice him for Wardle's try? He was still behind the play 2 tackles after the initial break! Unless I missed him receiving treatment or whatever, that is poor.

The referee did make some mistakes but i think there's being a lot made of them because we failed to defend the subsequent sets. We can't control what Thaler does but we can control how we defend and we let them in immediately after they got the ball. For me it's just that we weren't on our game because everyone's looking at the cup game next week and we've had a run of tough games. Look at how many consecutive sets we defended at Magic, we can defend our line we just didn't in this game. The fact that they were more up for it and stacked their bench were more of a reason for the swing in score for me.

On the obstruction for the Powell try I don't think it matters that O'Loughlin didn't move. He's stood ahead of the ball and gets in between the ball carrier and the defence. That was more of an obstruction than the ones against Salford for me, they were all technical inside/outside shoulder, which side of the dummy runner does the attacker catch the ball interpretation decisions.

At the moment he's just a body. He's about seventh or eighth choice prop and useful for squad rotation. i'm not saying he's at all good btw just that i can see why we might have him in the squad.

We won a playoff game with andy powell starting last year as well so i think we can carry jordan james.

Not the first time that's been the case either. He was the same at your place on Good Friday when Saints were breaking our line.

The match officials made a succession of errors last night which not only affected the scores but the result.
We were doing great until the Taylor knock on, which wasn't. That gifted Hudds possession when they should not have had it. If they scored through good play or poor defence to me that's irrelevent, they only scored because they were in possession when they should not have been.
If there is a procedure in place to help out the match officials when Brough kicks to touch and the TJ signals out on the full but then the VR crew help out by informing of the right decision, why did they wait until then?
I've seen in the NRL when a scrum is formed the ref is informed he's got it wrong they reverse their call to make it a correct one. If they can do it so can we, why isn't it being done?
After the last mess up involving the Giants with the Bentham no drop goal the match officials must surely now look at their match day operations.
We need a Captains Challenge and we need helpful intervention when the field officials have a decision plainly wrong.

It was Hicks who was awful last night. He gave the non existent knock on, gave the Hudds out on the full ( the only wrong decision that was overturned by going to the video ref) and miss the tackle on Bateman.

Whenever Wigan play he's the one official I dread being involved as we seem to get more than our fare share of poop calls.

He's awful.

The Hull KR game a couple seasons back where Bentham broke his leg, Hicks took over as ref and had a shocker that night too.