It's Bentham, and it's Leeds.

Nothing surprises me any more.

I thought Bentham had a good game overall but a couple of obvious mistakes cost Leeds. He missed obvious touch by the Bulls when Sinfield gathered on their line. Instead of another set he gave a turnover. He was obviously wrong on the Sinfield short drop out. Those two errors cost Leeds possession in two crucial parts of the game. Id like to think when his effort is reviewed this would be pointed out. That said and as is always the case he made fewer errors than the players and coaches who should be good enough to dictate the outcome without relying on a couple of close calls. I agree that showing leniency to players who lift legs is also poor refereeing

I'm surprised if you've never sampled the delights of Batley and Featherstone albeit perhaps some years ago now.




It is alleged (and I would agree) that the burden of proof for scoring tries is often greater in games where the video referee is present. Unless all the teams appear an equal number of times over the course of the season the playing field in this regard isn't a level one, IMO.

When Leeds (for example) were televised by SKY in 13 of 26 regular round fixtures (excluding Magic) as they were in 2010, Sky would need to show on average 3.5 games per week to allow all clubs parity with Leeds' total. I doubt this occurred given 3.5 games per week would be approaching double their scheduled output.

Agreed, no-one need be disadvantaged within any of the 189 individual games but we have two distinct standards of officiating being applied. I'd prefer we went back to one.

I would say that although there are two levels of officiating I don't think that anyone is at an unfair advantage by being on tv. Both teams get access to better decisions but that doesn't mean that is unfair on the rest of the non televised teams

Bentham was poor, a few Leeds players were awful *Ablett and McGuire, it happens.

For the record I thought the Bulls were great and I for one enjoy having them back and competitive, it makes for a better SL.

Does he know what offside is?

Sh## again from the Official and why no penalties for pushing at the ptb?

I thought he did ok TBH mate - he did seem to let a lot slip tonight but from both sides.

Also why weren't there any in goal refs?

I've no problem with that approach when it's consistent and imo he wasn't and ignored far too much "blatant stuff" and he'll no doubt be different again when he next officiates us .

I was in line with the Moon 'no' try in the first half off the Peacock pass, for me it was level and ok.

Thought Bentham had a decent game. Every week the ref will make a few errors, can't say this week was any worse than any others.The Moon no try looked a close call on the big screen, but doesn't level still count as no try?

Don't get me wrong MR i don't expect perfection or every 50/50 etc just consistency within the 80 minutes and week to week.
A couple of weeks ago we had DG ruled for JP pushing at the ptb now techinically that's a penalty but on at least 3 occasions tonight it happend to us and no penalty this si the same Ref??
Again every team will try and encroach and at times be visibly offside but it got ridiculous at times and imo the Ellis try just blatantly wasn't one either.

From where I was Ellis looked two yards offside and grounded the ball in the ginnel at the back of the western terrace. I'll stand corrected, but he may as well have carried on running and done a late shop in Morrisons at Kirkstall.

- TBF the Ellis try was right in front of us and the grounding looked fine. It was close but he did seem to get the ball down before the whitewash.

Fair do's FB if that's the case i'll happily admit defeat but i'm not convinced without seeing it in slow mo because even the replay imo seemed to show him to be in front of Chase and not ground the ball in goal.

The new ref's supremo must be having an influence already. Having to suffer one Steve 'draconian one week, laissez faire the next' Ganson was bad enough without the creation of a posse of clones.

I wonder what the coach will be thinking about a 4 to 1 penalty advantage to the home team this week.

Unrelated to Bentham but Jon Wilkin just did a late should charge to the head and only got put on report. Consistency?

I know some are saying now that shoulder charges are banned shouldn't all offences be a red/yellow card but I think they have to be treated the same as head high tackles.....some are worthy of dismissal, some a simple penalty while do.

There's just been another one with Gardener but to be fair the ref can't be 100% sure because he's eyes will be following the ball which had gone. And that's going to be the problem with the shoulder charges, most will be 'after the ball has gone'.....sometimes ref's will catch it out of the corner of their eye sometimes they wont and if they aren't sure then only 'on report' makes sense.

Yeah they're very subjective to whether the touch judges and the ref see the point of contact and how late it was etc, in this case though could the ref not ask the video ref where the contact was, if the technology is there why not use it?

he gave you everything didnt he

Could you leave our board and never return please kidda

Don't get me wrong mate, he was a mile offside at the kick but his grounding seemed ok.

I'd agree with that.

All shoulder charges should now be penalised as a matter of routine, although it appears some won't be (such as for example Huby on Ah Van last week in the Castleford V Widnes game) and you'd expect any that make contact with an opponent's head should result in a red card - this was already becoming the case in 2012 even before the shoulder charge was banned.

Jon Wilkin should have a case to answer after his challenge on Dobson yesterday.

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After the Gardner one on Welham, why wasn't the Hodgson 'try' allowed to stand? It appeared that Silverwood ruled a knock-on yet Hodgson got his leg to the ball before it hit the deck to propel it forward before it hit the ground and I thought after a Dave Halley 'no try' ruling in a Bradford -Leeds game from a few seasons back - the rule book geeks had determined that that didn't constitute a knock-on.