But surely JK will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Suppose he makes a load of changes and we lose to York. Imagine the outcry on here. people saying "this was a must win game, lose this and our seasons over and Kear changes the team massively".

Moving on, I could see Evans coming in if he has no reaction to 80 mins in the reserves, that would shore up the middle a bit. Crossley to come back if fit, and surely Wood for his defence,

Very odd comment.

It's almost as if you think attendance of the game in question is a pre-requisite criteria for the right to have a point of view.

I was actually hoping people would clarify for people like me who weren't in attendance whether or not the referee was garbage or not, but whatever.

Was going to post at more length, but (as normal) John Kear has said it all and he is spot on.

The season now literally rests on winning at York.

Maybe that's enough to get back to putting a full shift in, or maybe not. I've frankly given up guessing, though I did predict that IF lacksadaisical Bulls turned up, Swinton could do us, and frankly they deserved to.

I can give them credit for almost climbing out of the hole, but some of the play in digging that hole was frankly embarrassing. Notably the candyfloss defence for the last Swinton try.

I suppose the squad we've got,
It would be easy to conclude that they don't all have enough mental toughness and resilience to keep on backing up the standard and the resolve and the determination week in Week Out, the best teams do that nearly always, and the challenging teams do that very often, and the mid-table teams blow frustratingly hot and cold because the mental toughness isn't there.

I don't know what else to put it down to as clearly they are not unfit, and they are not lazy, and they don't give up.

I should add that I have always said a strong upper mid table performance this season would be a reasonable achievement. I still think that. We are building for the future, and I've seen a lot of good and entertaining Rugby from us, but sadly not every week. So I'm not suicidal, frustrating though it was.

John Kears comments every week seem to be on the money, he's a far better coach than we were entitled to get, and can clearly see where the deficiencies lie. The question is, how, and how much, can we improve for next season. I remain reasonably optimistic just because some of the stuff we've played of late has been as good or better than anybody else's and I'd be more worried if we couldn't produce at those levels.

I'm still not as sold on JK as some others appear to be.
It's all well and good saying such things in the post match press conference, but he obviously didn't do a good enough job of motivating the players [ibefore[/i the match otherwise he'd never need to say those things once the dust had settled!
He also continues to make some selection choices that leave me scratching my head, I still don't think I've fully forgiven him for the complete balls up he made of our run in at the end of last season - the Workington match at home was a complete disaster because of his team selection.

Just watched the highlights and made me feel even worse than I did yesterday. Despite the fact we played like total crap, its gutting to see some of the decisions go against us.

First Swinton try he is clearly in touch (his hand is actually the first thing to touch the line before the rest of his body follows). Then Magrin grounds the ball under the posts but the try is disallowed. Minchella try can be disputed either way. In slow mo he looks to get downward pressure but can see why its not given live on the field.

Would be interested to see the Kirk sin bin and also the Oakes brainfart towards the end of the game too but either way, a day later can't help but think this might come back and haunt us come end of the season.

After watching those highlights I can’t believe the ref overruled the touchie for Swindon’s first try, bearing in mind the respective positions they held at point of grounding

i have also just watched the highlights the ref is absolutely in need of a visit to supersavers reference the first Swinton and Magrin's try

What was the attendance please?

Don't know if anybody else has mentioned it but how many times did we get caught in possession on the last tackle.

Why are people convinced the ref over ruled the touch judge? He didn’t raise his flag to signal the player was in touch. However the video clearly shows his hand is well over the line. I don’t think Minchella grounded the ball and the Magrin effort is inconclusive from the replay.

York have on paper the toughest run in but they have points in the bag so obviously are favourites to cling onto 5th spot as I expect them to drop down the table in the next few weeks. They are the team we have most chance of catching but we simply have to beat them on Sunday to stay in the race.

3104 according to T& A

I can't really add much to what's already been said. I think it's possibly the worst defensive display i've seen from us under Kear. It reminded me of the sort of games we seemed to have in 2015/16 when we seemed to concede soft tries every week and then rely and rely on our attack to try and get us out of jail.

From the stand he 'Swished' the flag and pointed to the line where he ruled the player to be out and he never joined the ref in goal. He signalled it but the ref ignored.

From my view on the terrace and subsequently on the highlights I’d say all the incidents are pretty inconclusive really and the ref was nearer on all occasions.

What is clear is the defensive “efforts” at time were unacceptable. The try in the second half where the Swinton player burst through Magrin and Peltier was awful. There were some equally bad misses from Garside and Minchella that led to tries. They’re all capable of much better than that as we know which makes it disappointing. The left side defence was exploited at times with Kibula running at Keyes and Swinton creating space and an extra man. Oakes and Garside looked in trouble on a few occasions and we leaked tries there whenever Swinton got themselves organised.

The Liney's stance when the try was scored was a clear indication to the ref that there was an offence. i.e he stood on the touch line 2 metres from the corner flag. It used to be the case that linesman should not wave their flags like a demented semaphore exponent.

That's what I saw too. If the touchie has no problem with the score then he runs to the in goal corner ; he didn't, he held his ground at the corner flag; therefore he appeared to be overruled. Strange decision from the ref for what is really, without video, the touchie's call.

Maybe the officials go on the idea that a try should be given the benefit on the doubt, unless it's clearly out? Maybe the touchie said " I thought he might have been in touch but I'm not totally sure", so the ref just gave what he thought? I dunno. To be fair at normal speed it must be a right mare to make those instant decisions so I'm not going to bag the young ref ( I think I'm old enough to say that he was just a kid, without it being too insulting) who will learn, given time. Maybe he was correct, though my basic instinct would be to go with your first thought.

If he stood at the corber flag then he is saying that he is not sure, two metres from the corner flag (which is where I thought he stood) means there is an offence.

Jy has posted a picture on twitter of the guy's hand in touch as he dives to ground the ball



I think they should just let it go and move on now tbh.

I expect fans to get caught up in this but not the players. Someone needs to have a word with him

You going to get refereeing errors that go against you so it’s just part of the game we still gifted them enough scores with our defence. That last try was pathetic.

What I still don’t know is why Webster go sin binned. At the time I couldn’t work it out and having just watched it on you tube he’s tackled and gets head butted as clear as day whilst he’s laid on his back.

I wonder if Jy will be posting pictures of the non exsistent defence for half the tries Swinton scored on Sunday.Please can we just move on now and concentrate on the massive game coming up on Sunday.

Watching that last try, if any of Peltier, Margrin or Pickersgill are dropped none of them can complain. Why on earth did Pick go high. If he goes low he at least slows him down for Jy to tackle him.

Kear has some decisions to make. Does he bring in Brown for Pick? Sadly I think we'll see Grant brought in for Ethan which is a travesty as Ricketts is scoring tries for fun in the reserves.

Well like most rules in RL it seems I cannot keep up! Since when was a raised flag not an indication of a player being in touch?! I find it bizarre that a ref would overrule the touch judge in that position so I would have to assume the touch judge didn’t rule it out with any certainty. The touch judge obviously hangs back initially to in theory get a better view of the touch line.

In any case it was split seconds between the ball being ground and the hand already being in touch so you can hardly blame the officials in real time whilst running the line.

If Ryan is missing Evans will come in on the wing not Grant

OKay this is not particular to being in touch.
If linesmen saw an offence in general play then they were told to hang bacck for a few seconds before again following play. The ref should see that the liney is well behind play and then consult with him about the offence. The idea was that the crowd would not see linesmen flagging and then being overruled by the ref thus giving the impression they were all of one mind. THis may have gone out of the window now everyone seems miked up.