31 May KO:15:00 League 1 Rd: 8
Oxford RLFC v University of Gloucestershire All Golds

Iffley RoadReferee: S Ansell

Reserve: D Ward

Touch Judge: R Dolan

Touch Judge: M Mannifield


Match Commissioner: R Connolly

Some new names on that list! No doubt The Cube will come up with each's inside leg measurements etc. shortly...

when are we going to get a good ref like Jemie Bloem. The best referee by far last weekend in blackpool

COYB's

Clearly a major error by the RFL this week - I can only assume that they have accidentally swapped us with another game's officials. Anyway,

Referee: Sam Ansell (Huddersfield). No previous Oxford games. Has made mistakes in life.

Reserve: Dylan Ward (Widnes). No previous Oxford games.

Touch Judges: Richard Dolan and Michael Mannifield, both from Dewsbury and Batley. Dolan was touch judge for last season's trip to Gateshead (which was the last time Bulldog's friend Jamie Bloem refereed Oxford).

Match Commissioner: Bob Connolly (Wigan). Was match commissioner for our recent trip to Leigh. Usual story of a retired referee. Annoyed the Australians when refereeing a 2001 Test match, so obviously has many good points.

the ref for this weekend has been changed to Andy Bentham. Any info on him?

Good spot. I don't have much - he's from Leigh and I think he might be Phil Bentham's brother. Hasn't refereed Oxford before.

thanks mate

He is from Leigh but no relation to Phil. He used to (not sure if he still does) play for local amateur team Golborne Parkside. He also enjoys martial arts.
Think this may be his first first grade game as referee.

thanks mate,

How did Andy do yesterday?

Personal opinion but generally ok. Clamped down on a couple of things early on rather than pinging someone at random later on. Strong enough to give a penalty try, fair call to my eyes, and a penalty for offside at a drop out behind the line. The two combined to give us a 0-8 score. Would have been interesting to chat with him about his logic behind the sin binning though. I was slightly confused by that one.

Thanks for that. What was the issue with the sin-binning?

Quite possibly nothing wrong but would be interested to hear his view.

I was in the main stand so a long way from the incident. There was what looked like a fairly minor headshot. The touchie came on.

Whilst the ref tried to take control an opponent came over and delivered a double handed shove in the offenders stomach, sending him flying.

The initial offender was then yellow carded. No action was taken over the push.

I'd be interested to know
A) What the sin bin was for?
B) Why no action on the second incident?

Unless there was more in it than I, and those closer to the incident thought/saw it seemed far from the worst incident in the game yet was the only yellow card. It felt a little like the severity of the reaction swayed the ref.

The strange thing was only one attacker reacted immediately so either he spotted something no-one else did or he over-reacted and the other 12 saw it as a lesser incident.

As I said initially it just left me a little confused. Thought he had a decent game overall though and would be quite happy to see him again this season.