On the Sky broadcast, Carney infers that as Diskin knocked on and was not picked up by the referee, had we gone on and scored, we (Bulls fans) would have said nothing, inferring that in his words,we should move on from the blatent forward pass in the lead up to the Saints score. In other words two incompetent decisions make it right. I like Carneys input usually, he has freshened up a tired Sky presentation but this beggars belief really. These are professional referees in charge of games nowadays, the touch judges are also wired up to the said referee. One touch judge, I don't know his name, seems to be on every Sky televised game, so presumably he is deemed one of the better touch judges. And still they miss obvious forward passes.

This begs the question again, that has the RL done with the forward pass, what it has done with feeding the scrum, i.e ignore infringements in order to keep the game flowing.
In my opinion it must have. There are too many weekly examples, both for and aginst us, and in games not involving us, for this to be the case. Surely not even Silverwood and colleagues are so incompetent.

Think that's the bit you've got wrong.

I work behind a bar part time, and if I missed as many customers as Silverwood and co miss forward passes I'd be sacked. It seems no matter how poorly the SL refs perform they will never be dropped down, or (and it may sound harsh) sacked. Imo Bentham and Silverwood are the two worst in the league and neither should be reffing at the highest level.

Trouble is, who would you replace them with?

Yes, we most of us all call Silverwood and Child & Co third rate toilets/muppets/s; but I'd rather pack down in the front row against a monster pack (even at my age) than attempt to do their job.

I'm really far from convinced about the move to full-time referees. Unless you can pay them enough - and over a short career - to make the very best want to give up their day job to do it, you'll always have the suspicion that you have ended up with second best prepared to do what they are told, who can't earn a better living elsewhere IMO.

And if (as I suspect) you get paid comparatively sod alll for running the lines, you'll struggle to get the best flagwavers either? Since these guys so rarely seem to give the referee the strong support he needs. Better paid "assistant referees", anyone?

I thought Silverwood had a decent game. The forward pass was short, quick and in line with players either side so hard for touch judges to see and he obviously missed it. I thought he was correct on Foster/Whitehead as it was dangerous but accidental - a penalty and nothing more. Similarly, Gaskell didn't have the ball when Elima hit him which whilst great to see some grunt from Ollie it was a penalty and although Purtell is still moving he called held and so was bound to penalise when he went over the whitewash. Other than that can't think of anything.

It's when long passes to wingers drift 2 metres forward in direct line with the TJ that it's annoying. I quite like Carney but how many Wigan players are SKY trying to employ? Carney, Clarke, O'Connor, McDermot (OK he played most of his career with Leeds) and Tomkins as well.

Its ok dont listen to it on sky mute tv turn radio up to which ever channel is broadcasting it, and ive not seen tomkins on it yet i refuse lol

Talking sense as usual Adey.

Completely agree with your argument aswell, but can't help thinking that there must be some championship referees better than the ones in SL.

I have no doubts that reffing is one of the toughest jobs about, but players get dropped for poor performance, coaches get sacked, etc. It seems that refs are the only ones who are safe and no matter what they do, they know they'll get their wage and be on the pitch next week.

I thought the penalty against Saints for dragging Purtell out is unfair. OK the ref calls held but what are you supposed to do in that situation? It's not a pop at the refs as they have to enforce the rules but it needs looking at. It would be fairer in that situation to have the ball played roughly where the attacker was when you called held. Unless it's a case of afters and was avoidable. In that case though the Saints players couldn't stop.

I'm still convinced the 8 point try was the correct decision but I don't think there is anything nasty in it and Foster clearly doesn't intend to catch Whitehead in the head as his foot strikes the ball it's actually his knee that catches him. After looking at it again though you can see that he moves his foot towards the ball as Whitehead moves it during the process of scoring so is trying to dislodge the ball. Rather than it being a case of trying to clear it at the same time as WHitehead grounds it. That to me is a penalty for dangerous play. It's not even in the same league as Cockayne's attempt to take his head off during the Wakefield match.

Although I was booing like mad after the Saints first try I can see why it was missed and we'll no doubt get a score at some point during the season from a forward pass.

I've said before on this forum that the problem with the referees is that there are only seven or eight for the SL, which means that pretty well all of them get a game each week no matter how useless they were in the previous week.

Until a situation can be developed where there are, say, ten SL quality referees , then there will never be any real incentive for them to really be on the top of their game. How can you drop Silverwood next week when there is no-one else to replace him with?

As for the touch judges, the bloke on the main stand side looked to me like he needs pensioning off. He missed a few things and didn't seem to always up with the play. Sometimes referees from lower down the pyramid act as touch judges and this must surely be a better way - the likes of Roby, that ginger haired bloke and even James Child have been touch judges. I'd rather see those 'up and coming' blokes that old guys that look they need a trip to Specsavers.

I think Carney completely misses the point when he says that Bradford fans didn't complain about Disko's knock on; we got little advantage from the knock on, I'm not sure which tackle it was but all we got were a a couple of extra tackles at most, against a set defence, whilst Saints got a try pretty much as a direct result of the pass and it's that which people are up in arms about. It's pretty crass to compare the two decisions in the way he did.

That said, and whilst I moaned with the best of them at the game, I won't go on about a forward pass now, simply because we've got away with plenty of tries like that too, in fact we got away with a few forward passes in that game on Saturday, though sadly none which allowed a line break and gave us a try.

I think being caught in the passion of a match and looking back a bit more reflectively later on is ok. So in reflective mode, I feel that Adey is quite correct about the officials, and I wouldn't do their job for all the tea in China plus a pension, to be honest. Speaking as someone who moaned (I was joking, honest

) about "the same old refs turning up" after we were promised " some professional referees", my honest opinion is that refs are human beings who, like the rest of us, make mistakes; always did, always will, so we really must just accept it and move on. Fair enough, we can move on after a whinge, if we like, but move on we must.

When we look at who the ref is and think, "Damn", we've no chance with him, we maybe ought to think think of a possible alternative, which is that no ref turns up; no one is going to win that game, 'cos it won't get played.

You've given the answer there in your post, you are allowed to push players out but not to [idrag [/ithem out, that's been the rule for a couple of years now. Purtell had a Saints arm around his neck in the dragging process btw, so not only was he dragged but he was dragged by the neck - definite penalty to me.

I thought the penalty was awarded for taking him out after he called held though.

Bloody Brian Carney has done my nut in lately. Is he ever going to give us any credit?

Oh I think Saints will win more this year, theyre a good team. Bradford need to do more, they rely to much on Ben Jeffries. Can they get up for this game. Yadda yadda yadda, shut up and go stick your head in a law book or Phil Clarkes arris because youre pi$$$sing me off.

Do you have 10,000 muppets screaming insults at you every time you pull a pint? At every PTB the ref has to check the tacklers are in line, the defence are 10m back, the pass is not forward, subsequent passes are not forward, the tackles are legal, there is no interference, the tacklers clear the ruck in time, kickers are on side, is the scrum set proerly, is everyone on side all done when your lungs are bursting. Thousands of ofeten instant decisions every game. If the ref gets 2 decisions wrong a game that is an error rate of 0.001%. If a player does 30 tackles & 1 miss, 20 drives & 1 drop, in between his rests in the dug out that is an error rate of 4%. Are you suggesting players with those stats get dropped?
Huge over simplification I accept, but nowhere near as daft as your comparison with bar work.

After watching some of the referring on Sky’s full time we have nothing to moan about

I admit its not the best comparison, and I take on board your comments about 10,000 muppets and the pressure (had plenty of muppets in though, maybe not 10,000). But I still believe that for extremely poor performance (I'm not talking about Silverwood yesterday, but maybe some of Child's worst in the past) the RFL need the option of bringing someone else in to ref, and letting the other one drop down or sit out.


P.S, Just thought, your point about the crowd can't be taken seriously if a ref has a bad game at Salford, Widnes, london

That would suggest you are calling a fair number of posters on here "muppets", would it not?

Nah, the posters on here are the few not included in that 10,000.

Incidentally think tigertot meant mostly people in tetley's stand

Whatever you think of the refs it does seem to me that there are too few full timers. Any ref dropped from the SL list is only dropped for a week and then he's back in regardless of form. Think they need some competition for places and some opportunities to ref slower games for a break.

There does seem to be worryingly small gene pool of officials. But what incentive is there to take up the whistle when you see/hear the abuse at matches? That is nothing to some of the abuse I've witnessed at amateur games, when you don't have a wall & police present. They have nothing but my admiration (apart from that ba5tard at Wigan in the late 80s who swindled Cas out of a massive upset).

As far as I can see there are only 7 SL referees

Phil Bentham
Richard Silverwood
Steve Ganson
Thierry Alibert
Ben Thaler
James Child
Robert Hicks

I think from memory Tim Roby might have done the odd SL game but I don't think anyone else ever refs a SL game? There was Ian Smith but seems to have disappeared behind the video referee screen nowadays

That means every one of the them gets a game every week regardless of how bad they were last week.

Surely that can't be a very healthy situation

Phil Bentham, Richard Silverwood, Steve Ganson, Thierry Alibert, Ben Thaler, James Child & Robert Hicks are the full time referee's.
Ian Smith is now the match officials coach as he retired a couple of years ago from active refereeing. Tim Roby has done a few SL games to cover when others have been injured/suspended.

Being an ex referee (I finished a couple of years ago due to injuries and other personal reasons) I don't like how the game is being run with the match officials. You don't have enough officials to cover all the games at the pro and amateur level. Most officials who do acadamy games also have to cover the NCL and local open age & youth games. I know officials having to do 5 or 6 games a week. plus you have training and meetings to attend. Somewhere around all this you have to work and have some form of social life.

In SL I don't agree with having only James Child & Robert Hicks running a line on a friday night and then refereeing on a sunday. why can't the rest of the full time officials do this? Also this is denying up and coming officials the chance to gain experience in the pressure of SL.

It's not an easy job to do but most people understand this. We need to give others the opportunities to officiate in the top league. If you don't give them this oportunity then how can they be expected to step up when Steve Ganson & Richard Silverwood eventually retire? It's exactly the same as being the coach of a team. Give the younger guys a chance in a lesser game and see how they cope. If they do well give them more matches and if not then don't.

A way to improve the consistancy of decisions being made is to get rid of laws that are open to an individuals interpritation. Those that attended the Bullbuilder "Meet the ref" evening will know the the touch judges are constantly communicating with the referee. They don't need to wave a flag anymore so it can look like they're doing s*d all.

It is a rewarding job to do and you don't get a better view of the match. I have alot of respect for someone to do the job.

The Diskin incident just proved to me that people like Carney can blind an entire nation to what actually happens on screen. It did look from the head on angle as if Diskin had lost the ball, but if you move it on frame by frame you get to see, very clearly, and without any doubt, he was in fact holding it, with his hand underneath and round the back of the ball. I presume from the side, the linesman could see this.

The forward pass that led to the try was an bad mistake. Silverwood was not best placed to judge it, and maybe therefore he relied on the muppet running the stand line. That guy was absolutely in line, and I can't imagine how he could have missed it. As was said on Sky, 10,000 in the ground and the officials were the only 3 who didn't see it. Weird.

That said, I thought Silverwood reffed OK looking at the game as a whole, and I reckon the guy would have made the break anyway if the pass had been flat as it was a good angle he ran. But of course unfortunately for the ref a try resulted from the error and that's why everyone was so uptight. The fact remains that the very short, almost hand-on pass to the man coming off your shoulder is always a very hard one to judge not least because the players themselves tend to obstruct the ball from view, so often you yell for a forward pass, for example, but have to concede when watching the TV replay that the pass was probably OK.

the stuff about giving young budding refs a crack to see how they get on is, with respect, guff. The thing which I admire the most about refs is the amazing thick skin they must have, not only surrounded by 26 testosterone-fuelled highly-charged players with adrenaline going through the roof, but also thousands of speccies just waiting for ANY perceived mistake to bay for your blood. It's not a nice job, and must take a particularly strong constitution to do it. I think a long apprenticeship, and some occasional low-key lesser games as introductions, are exactly the way to do it.

It's a shame more ex-players don't turn to reffing.

Apart from the players & officials virtually everyone else is viewing from higher up, which makes forward passes or momentum much easier to spot.

Isn't every decision an individual's interpretation? That is why it is simply not possible to have absolute cosistency.

I can't think that's true, surely, apart from people within a mile or two, the curvature of the earth would mean that almost all the population would be lower down?