ONE PICTURE SAYS IT ALL

Firstly, I am going to take back my original comment on the other thread (well slightly

) and from the photo it is clear that Alibert should have held Leeds up and make them take the tap again. Buderus is in front of the line, quite clearly, it is difficult to tell how central he is on the line due to perspective, but if he was in front then that does not matter anyway.

However, this does raise a couple of issues and I think one that does have an easy cure.

When I posted my comments I had only seen the match once (live on Sky) and I have not reviewed it since. I was fairly certain I was right, and indeed I was right, in my assessment that the Alibert held Trinity up because all of the team were not behind the 20 when they tried to take their tap and that all the Leeds team were behind the 20 for their tap (I now know that Buderus was in front of the line, but I will get back to that).

Now, why did I notice this and feel confident enough to post comments on such... because I was specifically looking for it on both occasions!!!

Both teams moved quickly to take the tap and I know that a quick tap is only allowed when all the attacking team have got back on-side behind the 20, so while watching on TV, I was looking for it, along with also trying see and quickly note who was off-side in the defending teams when the tap was taken, just in case.

This is also exactly what any ref has to do at this moment in time (as well as many other things) and while I am not excusing Alibert, I think he let the quick tap be taken because, like me, he had not even noticed that Buderus was slightly yet notably in front of the 20. When it comes to him spotting that he is not quite on or behind the 20, amongst the other things he is looking out for at this time, he actual has a poorer view than the still from the camera on the OP. He (Buderus) may not have been quite central either and while it should be easy for Alibert to spot this one how central is central and in this case the still shot in the OP you can't honestly tell anyway?

The solve to this problem is very easy, we should now mark centre of both 20's with a metre long (500mm each side) perpendicular line. I am almost certain that, if we did have such a marking on the pitch, Alibert (and all ref's) would find this type of offence easier to spot as they would have a clear visual marking reference on the pitch. I am sure that if this had been the case on Saturday, Alibert would have seen this and held Leeds up to take the tap again.

Now the bit that unfortunately some of you will still accuse me of having blue & amber tinted glasses on about! All ref's are actually looking for the quick tap to be allowed rather than dis-allowed... but the number 1 criteria is that all the attacking side are behind the 20! Alibert (who lets be frank, is not the best we have by a long way) is not deliberately or otherwise trying to be crap, inconsistent or biased, he is trying to ref the game to the best of his ability (which might be quite low... unfortunately) and that goes for all the decisions he did or did not make. If we switch the teams in this situation around does Alibert make the same decisions again (a right one and a wrong one)... of course he does, and Leeds fans are the ones moaning that Obst was in front of the line and they got held up so why didn't Trinity etc, etc! Because he missed it, Alibert (and me) did not spot it! Two wrongs don't make a right either!

I don't think he had a great game but I don't think he had a shocker, I do think you were on the end of more of the bad calls but no more than I thought Leeds had from Child at Belle Vue. And if we just look at this very simply, the penalty count at Belle Vue was far more one way than this one, but do I think Child was biased... of course not.

Now of course, if we were talking about the WCC and Mr Silverwood....