Yep totally agree.

I agree that refs generally are focused upon too much, they need to get rid of the 'ref commentary' on sky for a start. That said, Kendall is consistently exceptionally crap regardless of who's playing and that's more an issue with any entertainment left in the game when he's done with it rather than the outcome of games.

This, this and thrice this.

Captain Calamity Cummings was brought in to explain the rules to the layman but the amount of fog platting he will go through to defend an obvious and blatant mistake is horrendous, hes also about as interesting as a wet fart.

Sky needs to get with the times and get a bit more "pizzazz" , they are deffo moving in the correct direction but getting rid of Cummings is an easy fix to instantly improve things, there are far too many people vying for attention on the mike.

As for blaming refs? they will inevitably go with the team who has momentum, we very rarely are in the ascendancy or have consistent momentum so we are on the wrong end of the stick, this is down to us. I have noticed that a certain team who usually have tremendous form for blaming refs are suddenly quiet as mice now they are currently purring and destroying teams. They just cant see the correlation that if you are in the ascendancy in a game, thus have the momentum you will inevitably get the calls, bend your back, reap the rewards.

Could be down to the fact he was a south Leeds boy . Possibly belle isle school, plus belle isle, hunslet and Middleton areas weren’t exactly lovers of Leeds . The allegiance would be to hunslet.

I don't think refs are biased against particular teams from the get go, but it can sometimes appear that way if they have an issue with a particular facet of the game e.g. laying on at the PTB. Some teams do it more than others and will get pinged more. A couple of NRL clubs who have had issues with individual refs have gone public and announcing that they are looking to meet with a particular ref to discuss 'interpretations'. What its probably more about is putting a bit of public pressure on a ref they perceive to be inherently more likely to penalise them without overtly accusing them of bias. Does it work? Dunno.

You are kidding right?

Refs are doing a professional job they’re paid for. Their focus would primarily be on getting decisions right on the field. When you do that job every week the club allegiance thing becomes irrelevant. Incompetence is another thing.

I am not so sure about that. I think a few comments of late from that idiot Silverwood highlight a few things thought at the time. Silverwood at one point was one of our best, he was also good with us. Then something started to change, and players certainly had a thing against him, and he came up with terrible decisions against us for quite a while.

The comments seen last few weeks seem to explain a lot of that. And those errors were not honest mistakes.

I'm not saying a ref can't take against a club if there's a fall out or bad blood. If players are constantly questioning his integrity or whatever and the club is whining in public (which used to happen quite a bit in the old days), some refs will take the petulant route and be determined to show who is in authority. I'm not sure that's the same thing as wearing a particular club's pants under your shorts though.

IIRC wasnt there an issue with Senior and Silverwood? Did Senior mention it in his book?

Senior, Smith, Ablett. All of them had issues with him. And that childish thing Silverwood did as soon as Smith was back in the game the other week was just silly. Then he starts with messages about Leeds having the best ground in the Championship next year. The guy is a fruitcake with a grudge.

Just had a quick look at his twitter. Interesting.

Well hes not Reffing now is he ?

Unfortunately ( as we found) the further down the pecking order you go the worse the ref you are allocated. That isn't meant as a blame the ref comment it is just a fact. As you have said you seem to get this one an inordinate number of times, whilst Saints or Wigan will probably sick of seeing the likes of Thaler week in week out.

The problem is though, what you are suggesting isn't the case. We get this idiot a lot because we are on sky a lot. For some reason the RFL see this idiot as the number one ref, hence the face of sky all the time. If it was what you are suggesting, then we would be getting one of the more none noticeable refs.

Just like to say, and might just be first half, but think Thaler has been excellent tonight. Just to keep it balanced.

And then he spoils it all

. How do you miss a forward pass like that.

How can Cummings defend the officials there

Cummings what a idiot, even on TV he cannot spot a forward pass , the other commentators could believe what he was saying. No wonder the refs in this sport are shocking

Time to bin Cummings off.

Seriously will bend over backwards to defend an obvious muck-up from the refs and adds nothing to the commentary of any value.

Kendall is very poor but not the worst both child's and if you can remember Kirkpatrick were much worse as they thought the cameras were there to watch them. Childs is utterly useless

Kirkpatrick was a brilliant ref. His first year might have been poor, but after that he was the best ref around.

Interesting. I did a number of matches as a touch judge with Kirkpatrick and he was an absolute mare with us and the players absolutely despised him due to his arrogance. His maxim was “my pitch, my game, my moment”
He was part of the reason I gave up.
Best ref I ran touch for was Bill Harragan closely followed by Steve Presley and Nick Oddy neither of whom were popular with HQ because they refused to “do as they were told”

Also interesting that you make this point and have been in the position. When I moved house six years back, the survey was done by a super league touch judge. He was absolutely adamant that everyone hated working with Ganson, for the exact reasons you just gave for Kirkpatrick. Don’t know if you came across him the same? But it is dissapointing that Ganson is now in charge of officials.

I never did a match with Ganson as he usually got top matches and I was not good enough or was not prepared to do the bummlicking to get to the top but he was quite arrogant in training. Cummings was another that was preferred to better refs.
For my sins I mainly ran lines for Silverwood when he was on the way up. I know this will be unpopular but I rated silverwood but he liked the amber stuff too much