Homenaway: Just watched the match again on iPlayer and with a more relaxed assessment. Kendall really doesn't like us, does he? All the little 50/50 decisions seem to go against us when he is reffing, so for example, what might be a loose carry when we're defending is always a ball steal, whereas when we lose the ball it's a knock-on. Opposition players shouting at the ref seem to get a jokey response from him, but when we do it, it's a penalty for dissent (and then sin-bin). There are many other examples too.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but his beef with us seems to have started with the infamous Griffin send-off at halftime when we played Saints in the cup in 2023. Before then he appeared to me to be a lot more even-handed with us.
Would have liked to of seen a replay of the tackle that preceded the Asiata sin bin. On first glance seemed to loose it in the initial contact. If he just told him he thought it was a knock on then that's a weak reason from Kendall to card him. If this was happening with other refs then we would have to say its our own fault but it was the same in the Catalans game with Kendall, just not wanting us talking to him but ok with the opposition.
