Quote: hatty "It’s the same Wigan born ref that sent a Wigan player off against HKR in the cup semi last year that ultimately lost us the game. Had French try been given then this ref nonsense would never be mentioned, oh but wait a minute the video ref disallowed it. It goes both ways.'"
But there was clear evidence that French was offside so not really the point.
The system needs to be changed whereby either the referee is confident and backs himself with a try or no try decision, or if he isn’t confident he sends the decision to the video ref, completely. We can’t have a system for a professional sport whereby a referee takes a guess, albeit an educated guess. It’s the bit after that whereby the video ref then has to have clear evidence in order to overturn the refs guess. You could argue that decisions balance out over a season so it’s alright, but look at how the game was influenced last night. Both teams were brilliant, and they were a fantastic advert for the game in general, but winning and losing in those games is a very fine margin and the officiating needs to be better. The players and supporters deserve better.
Also, how long do we have to suffer the love fest commentary of John Wilkins when he’s covering Saints games on Sky as per last night against Huddersfield?