Didn't the NRL Video Refs make decisions on forward passes a few years ago then reverted back as now.
I agree if we can make a call, why cant the VR with an overhead camera angle do so

Seems silly that for something as obvious as the McGuire knock on, well it would have been to the VR, it can't be raised with the on field ref. Even Pigs Bladder has come around goal line technology. Maybe when a blatant blatant error favours us, they will do something about the reffing which has been atrocious this year.

It begs the question why Ganson didn't immediately inform Thaler via the radio link that there might be a knock-on. It was obvious to anyone on first viewing that Maguire had touched the ball forward.

I'm pretty sure VRs are in frequent contact with the ref - in fact if you look back at the Hall lost ball incident on the Wigan line, Thaler, who had a perfect view of the incident, initially waves "play on" very demonstatively. Why did he change his mind a few seconds later - something said to him by agent Ganson?

Alibert, obviously, grew up in France so he hasn't got the jealousy and hatred of Wigan that other refs have.
He makes mistakes for both sides. Other refs and video refs make many many crucial mistakes (intended) against Wigan. Wigan's historical success means in each game we have to beat the referee.
I have seen some of Wigan's forward passes missed by refs but I've never seen howlers in Wigan's favour.
I guess we have to live with it but it's so annoying.

People always complain about refs in sport, but RL has a real problem in this country.

The standard of officiating is just not good enough. Too many games turn on refereeing errors and we have refs that like to hog the limelight.

This season we've seen refs sending off the wrong player and failing to count six tackles properly, as well as VR errors.

Change at the top is needed, as are other measures such as giving touch judges more responsibility (and renaming them assistant referees to reflect their new status and role) and/or the introduction of a second referee.

it happens to every team

Not to the extent that it happens to Wigan. Nowhere near. And it has gone on for years and years. But, it's getting worse.
Leeds scored off a BLATANT forward pass, scored off a non penalty, scored off a BLATANT knock-on, Ganson looked numerous times to find a way of giving Hall a try from a BLATANT double movement which we all saw on first replay and the number of times Wigan players caught Leeds' defenders not square at the play the ball, only for the ref to wave play on, was unbelievable.
I don't agree with this 'we didn't play well enough to win'. A fair ref and we would have won.

Thats quite a paranoid way to look at it. Im sure mistakes made against us are highlighted more than some other teams due to us playing in bigger games and being covered more by the media. Plus our own fans continual moaning about every decision that goes against us (whether right or wrong) doesnt help

I was quick to highlight the mistakes made by Thaler after our semi loss but he made mistakes in awarding decisions to us also (although I cant remember what as i didnt really take much notice)

At the end of the day, we have the poorest set of referee's of any sport I have ever seen but it doesn't mean they are out to get us

Oh dear. And we wonder why fans of other clubs have the opinion of Wigan fans that they do. NEWSFLASH: Every defeat is not due to the referee being bent, the RFL does not have an anti-Wigan agenda and any form of poor behaviour from rugby fans is not caused by football fans.

Yes we were on the end of several poor calls but it wasn't Ben Thaler who constantly let Rob Burrow run from dummy half and dictate the play. Nor did he forgot how to defend our line and miss numerous tackles you would expect him to make. We were sh*t and lost to the better side. Why can't we just congratulate Leeds and f*cking move on???

O/T but it got me thinking about refs, and could not help remembering a football ref from the 70's called Roger Kirkpatrick, a great character who talked to players and had respect. My feeling are that our present crop of RL refs are just a little too bland, and don't get the respect of the players. I don't think any are particularly bad, i just don't think they are particularly good. Not stopping the backchat, and handling friction are two areas where they are sadly lacking. Not tough enough on the backchat, and ridiculasly over the top with trouble when it erupts. Aliberts errors can be pointed out, but the same can be done with all the others.

Erm, Lima's try from a forward pass at Wembley, Stevie Wonder saw that one !!!!, there is no bias or favouritism against Wigan by referees, no 'agendas' either, we get bad calls, and we get good calls from refs,and video refs,(Tommy's 'benefit of the doubt' try in the final could have gone either way)we just have to get on with it, as John Monie says in his book, "the 2 things you cant control are the referee and the weather", we didn't play to our potential on Saturday, Leeds did, congratulate them and concentrate on London and beyond, Keep the Faith !!!

Regardless of which ref is appointed each week, there's always a few who'll expect him to lose us the game or something daft - it rarely transpires that way. Alibert, this season's miscounting issues aside, usually seems to get on just fine - the only issue I'd have with him is that it's not always clear what he's doing or giving, which in turn makes it look as though he's a bit clueless, but in general I can't think of many games that have been 'ruined' by him, and there's no sense of him trying to steal the show like Ganson on occasion.

Thaler's error in awarding that try to Leeds without going upstairs was a big one, at a crucial point in the game. It's stupid that when everyone else in the stadium knows it was a knock-on, and we have the video technology there to show it within seconds, that he's made a decision and stuck to it; that's what the video ref should eradicate, for me. Ultimately though, Wigan were second best on Saturday, Leeds deserved the win, and Thaler probably hurt his own chances of being involved at Wembley more than he did ours. He's been the best of the bunch in Super League this year and I would have thought he'd have been in line for the job at the Final next month, but after getting such a crucial call wrong, he may have cost himself the chance, and I'm sure if that's the case he'd be gutted and do it differently next time.

As for Wigan not benefitting from howlers - Jeff Lima's second try at Wembley last season?

The biggest howler I can remember Wigan being awarded was against Wakefield a few years ago, when Danny Orr clearly dropped the ball over the line, but it was given by the video ref. IIRC, it was later "evened out" by the Solomona disgrace.

I do feel like other teams are more likely to get the 50/50 or 60/40 calls than we are though, makes it a pleasant surprise when one does go our way.