I`m not sure we can always blame touchies re forward passes/offsides, they do not flag for these, they inform the ref who then makes an informed decision (allegedly). If they see a player offside they report "player X offside", if the player is deemed to be in an advantageous position he will then say "and involved", at which point the ref SHOULD award a penalty. Flags are only raised to denote ball out of play or foul play. I think the above points are to save yet more embarrassment for the merry whistleblowers.

p.s. I fully expect to see Bentham doing next week`s Catalans game.

OK, so is it now legal for players to fist off tacklers, like that dirty get Hock did yesterday? This is supposed to be rugby league, not cage fighting!! He also did the same thing several more times. Absolutely disgusting behaviour!!! Another thing, when are the RFL gonna even look at revising the "waterboy" rule, because Forshaw once again puked up all over it. Its been abused to an incredible degree.

MIKE FORSHAW, I WON'T TELL YOU AGAIN - IF YOU'RE THAT BOTHERED ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS ON THE PITCH, IF YOU'RE CAN RUN THAT LONG WITHOUT FEELING KNACKERED, AND YOU REALLY WANT TO BE THERE, DUST OFF YOU'RE BOOTS AND START PLAYING AGAIN!!!!

If the ref actually penalised all the holding on in the tackle Danny Sculthorpe would have been sin binned. As the amount of times he held the Wigan player down when he carried the ball into the tackle was a joke.

At least five times in the second half he was stoppping the Wigan player getting up in an attempt to get a penalty for himself. Hes a disapointment as a player had real potential but seems to ahve gone backwards.

As for the Hock try. was nothing wrong with it at all. Stop blaming the ref as a few of you here are. But dont get me started on the touch judge that quite clearly did not know where the whitewash was. He missed 1 40/20 for Wigan and a foot in touch by a Wakey player.

The better side won.

Let me ask this question, If had been the other way round and it was Pitts arm/elbow/hand on Hock's throat/chin would he have got away with it.


I don't think so.

Whilst forward passes are annoying, its swing & roundabouts, the most blatant one I can remember was James Evans at Cas in 2006. Even so, the linesmen are getting paid for doing the square route of sod all. I’ve no idea how much they get paid, but, based on their input, it’s far too much. Everybody bleats on about the Ref’s but there’s a lot going on out there and a little help from his ‘assistants’ wouldn’t go amiss.

Wigans 1st try was well forwards, and momentum couldn’t be sited, he also pinged Peterson in the 2nd half, when he wasn’t actually in touch, yet missed one when he was – very poor, but, they fitted in nicely with our performance .

Someone should smash the video ref accross the face with an elbow and then ask him if he wants to change his mind.

Seriously though, The decision was made by someone who has surely never played the game and therefore can't identify with being on the receiving end of that kind of hit.

The fact is that Hock lead with his elbow/forearm and thats illegal, from that point on it does'nt matter what happens as it has to come back for a penalty or worse.

Anyone who saw the Aus V NZ Test match on Friday morning will have heard Phil Gould slate the officials for disallowing a good try.

Now I don't like Gould and I disagree with much that he says, he lets his jingoistic biggotry get in the way of his judgement too often.
On Friday though he made a statement that too many officials know the rules but crucialy they don't know the game and as such they make poor calls.

This was the case in point with the video refs decision that Hock had done nothing wrong!

Yeah some of the refs decisions were poor but its not the refs fault that our tackling is pathetic at times. My gran could do better

Would he have got away with it had we not been on tv?. Remember the KR forward Azu wotsit what got sent off at BV for the same thing a couple of seasons' ago.

joe vagana was the same away last year got an immediate red if he would have dissalowed the try for foul play would he have had to send off hock talking about refs i think thalers been absolute garbage this afternoon

If any of you were concenred about the 'refereeing standards' you'd be looking at controvercial decisions that went both way for each side yesterday....Not just those went in Wigan's favour, wouldn't you?

That's unless EVERY single decision went against Wakefield and this thread really isn't sour grapes?

You lost. Accept it. Get over it.

If Jay had have done that to Hock on purpose he would not have got up for a while mate, not that he would but if he did


To answer the question NO.

The point I'm trying to make is that if people are genuinally concerned about refereeing standards, then they should mention decisions that went against Wigan as well as Wakefield, shouldn't they?

For example, there was a clear forward pass leading upto one of your first half tries too, that like us, was picked up by the commentary...But nobody has mentions it in this thread.