Quote Wire Yed="Wire Yed"Wire fan here so most definitely a neutral.
My main gripe with Child was his inconsistencies, i can live with an inept ref if it's equal but i found myself shouting at the injustice of his allowance of the Wigan laying on tactics and the penalising of Widnes in half the time he allowed Wigan.
I really couldn't care less in this fixture about the result but whoever won or lost i wanted it to be a blood and thunder entertaining contest and most of all a fair one...it wasn't(a fair one that is).
Ah Van sending off, going off past seasons i'd say harsh but i don't know what's been said behind Red Halls doors in the off season so I'm going to assume this is a new directive.
Unintentional definitely but intention isn't the prerequisite to a sending off, personally a yellow would have sufficed for me.
Smith, intent and foul play surely must have no other outcome than a red, it's violent conduct even by rugby full contact standards.
Tomkins, i think wasn't trying to tackle him to the floor but the player(?) Wasn't ready for the contact and fell back with Joel on top of him, although i don't think he was peace keeping, Tomkins has always been a hothead and a bit of sh*th**s*.
Draw was a fair result UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, although I'm not sure it was.
12 v 14 for me, Child dreadful.'"
Find myself almost completely agreeing with a Wire fan which must be a first. Bad refereeing is a given, not much we can do about it but blatant bias is another thing altogether and believe me, this fella's got plenty of previous where Widnes are concerned. To add insult to injury, we had the other clown Robert Hicks running the line who seems to have reported Smith for something he said, but couldn't see the blatant kick aimed at a retreating player. For anybody who knows anything about the game, these 2 are an embarrasment and for good measure, you can put Ben Thaler into that category as well.
