I think the bigger problem from my point of view was he had already called play-on, Silverwood saw the incident and made a decision on it. It wasn’t a case of him allowing the play to see where it finished (at the time of the offence it wasn’t a clear opportunity) more him seeing an incident, making a decision on it, then because it eventually resulted in a try getting a 2nd opinion on it. The issue is the discrepancy between Mcguire getting tackled a yard out, and Leeds scoring the next play-the-ball and the referees decision stands, and Mcguire scoring with a good bit of play and the referee giving up on his decision. I think there need to be a process whereby either we stick with the referee’s decision that he made when he called play-on originally, or that possible obstruction is checked by the VR even if he doesn’t score.

If you do the latter there will be video checks for every potential penalty situation and the game would go on a lot longer than it does. The rules state checks on tries should be made if there is a doubt about the legality of the try so the VR was the correct call. Having said that I don't believe he should have waved play on because the VR interpretation suggests it is a basic that if you run behind a player that is in the defensive line he is deemed to be obstructing, that should be easy to police.

If we are taking a standpoint that every infringement needs to be punished then we need to follow through on that. I think it would be crazy for us to have a situation where a decision the referee has made is checked simply because a try was scored but that same infringement would be ignored if the player was tackled and a try scored on the next play. It should be an all or nothing situation, either the VR looks at everything and advises accordingly or he doesn’t.

As I say, Silverwood made already made a decision, there should be no need to revisit that after the fact just because a try was scored, if that infringement happened, it happened whether there was a try or not.

Personally I would remove all interpretive judgements from the VR rather than leaving some with the VR and some with the Ref (why would we check an obstruction but not interference at the PTB?) and leave the VR to judge on more the absolute issues like grounding, onside/offside, if a player was in the field of play, foul play etc. Those decisions are absolute and the VR is a great decision making tool for that. Obstruction, like forward passes, are quite a bit more in the eye of the beholder and there will always be some debate over whether they were right or wrong the on-field-ref is in a good position to make those judgements. There is also the matter of consistency, Silverwood could, even on second viewing in the VR’s room see that as a try, he could let incidents like that go all over the park. Ian Smith may see them as a penalty. That leaves us with a position where the on field ref sees it as try even with the benefit of numerous camera angles and slow-mo etc but another referee interprets it differently and that only becomes apparent when one team scores.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

The only thing that moved the ball forward from Tomkins to Richards was the speed he was heading towards the Leeds line before he released the pass. Tomkins passed it backwards and stayed ahead of the ball as Richards took it. It's perfectly OK for the ball to travel forwards in relation to the ground in that situation, in fact unless the ball is passed markedly backwards (which it isn't required to do) you would expect it to fly in the direction it did.

Not even a close call for me.

Your explanation of why it was a forward pass can also go here, if you wish.

Sorry, you are Stevo and i claim my £5

[urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUWRzjLic_M[/url look about 3.45

The NRL system could be worth a look at.

The on field officials confer as we do in SL, if they decide to go to the Video Referee they give their opinion on what they saw with a clear signal to show Try or No Try.

That's far from final but it shows what their on-field view is. If their live view is a Try then the video referee has to find a clear reason to overule.

Relating that to Sunday - assuming Silverwood was minded to award the try - as appeared the case with his clearly audible 'play-on' call then his initial Try decision may have been upheld by the VR.

Watched the St George V Penrith game at the weekend and despite having two video referees and an initial call of try from the onfield officials they still bizarrely (IMO) came up with an overule - so I guess as long as humans are involved it's probably impossible to eliminate all human error - whatever system you have.

Yes I have seen the try before but thanks for that as it highlights two things very well

1 - Why the pass was ruled OK as per my explanation

and

2 - Some people still can't grasp the basics

I know well about the velocity in relation to the ground etc.. but it is quite clear that the ball leaves tomkins hand in a forward motion not just because the player is moving in a forward direction.

Where is John Senior when you need him?

Agree, it would have been interesting to see what Silverwoods call would have been. He obviously thought that there MAY have been a problem as asked the video ref to check possible obstruction.
I like the Aussie ruling as it does give a bit of direction to the video ref.

I notice on the bbc super league show both tony smith and wilken thought the McGuire try should have been allowed.

I thought Smith contradicted himself on that one.

wigan got all the 50/50 calls yet again from bentham just like at wembley in 2011

regarding the no-try,would this have been picked up had the game not been on tv?
i agree that players now know how to impede dummy runners and how to best reap the rewards but surely common sense must prevail and that the impeded player would have to have been capable of stopping the try,i don't believe that sundays incident was preventable by the impeded player alone,add to the fact how far out the incident occurred too as most obstructions happen much closer to the tryline

I agree.

The pertinent point for me is that if McGuire hadn't had the skill to dummy Tomkins and Tomkins had been a better FB (a la Hardaker

) by making the tackle; then any legitamate score off the next play would have been allowed and the 'obstruction' forgotten.

Personally while watching the game I was shouting at the TV for Mags to take the tackle as when I saw it at the time I thought obstruction.

By that logic Powell's try just after half time would have been allowed and at 26-12 the game would probably have been over.

The only thing that is quite clear is that you and I have a different opinion on the direction it left Tomkins hands. More camera angles are needed and even then only if positioned precisely in line and people will still no doubt see things differently. Camera angles from behind the play (majority of TV shots as cameras tend to be positioned high above the centre line) tend to make passes look more forward than they are while cameras from behind the dead-ball line have the opposite effect.

Flat and backward passes are legal. Tomkins would have found it difficult to propel the ball forward while moving at speed and had he managed to do so Richards would have needed to be stood in front of the passer or sprouted wings in order to collect it, IMO.

I think he was short anyway

I would imagine Watkins try may not have been given without the replays also

Strange how all the other passes shown from the same camera angle in that attacking set look backwards, it's only the Tomkins to Richards that is an optical illusion.

What's Bentham got to do with it?

The score was 20-16, a four point difference.
Pick where that four points came from,
a) Bailey's push on Logan Tomkins, result a pen and two points.
b) JJ Buchanan's lifting Lauaki's leg and pushing him over, pen and 2 points.
c) Sinfield's poor kick from which Charnley scored a try, four points.
Eight points to Wigan there and all through Leeds' mistakes.
As far as the Mcguire touch down, McDermott agreed that it was the right decision under the rules. He just didn't like the way the rules were applied to his team, that's all.

I agree with this to some respect. Watching 'The Superleague Show' Tony Smith made a good point re Hullgate. He said he would expect the on pitch officials to pick up the offside without the need for the VR

Remember there are 5 games a week without the "so-called" advantage of the VR, and in this case the advantage has clearly failed. Would Thaler have given the try in a non-televised match?

During the Leeds replay I quite clearly heard Silverwood say "play on" as McGuire went behind his player. At the moment it seems the referees are using the video referee way too much for things that in the past would've been expected to be picked up by themselves. As far as Im concerned, the ref made his decision, play on, Leeds scored. There shouldn't have been any possible reason for him to go to the VR. The video ref should be used for try's like Dixons and Watkins superb corner efforts, not for something that happens 10min before on the halfway line which should've been picked up by a touch judge or referee anyway!

It's done, move on. By the letter of the law mcguire infringed, the ref, after hullgate, wanted to make absolutly sure so referred it and the video ref made the right (albeit annoying) call. Had it not been for the stupidity of some of our own players we'd have probably won regardless.

We need to focus on getting back to winning ways now as we are still well in contention for for 2nd place.

I agree but the video ref can't disreguard the black and white rules and use common sense instead. The rules need to be altered to allow a more common sense approach.

Stuart cummings summed it up best in commentary and showed what a straight forwards decision it was.

Was the leeds in the defensive line? yes
did the ball handling player run behind him? yes

No try. Simple.