Quote ="Roy Haggerty"You really should have. The penalties he awarded to Australia in the second half, and the penalties he didn't award to England, were crucial in determining the outcome of that match.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you quite vehemently here. The rules are very clear - downward pressure on the ball by any part of the hand is a try. There was downward pressure on the ball by Hall's finger, and thus it is a try. I genuinely do not understand why some people are claiming this is somehow debatable. It was a 50/50 call for the on-field referee, which is fine - if he'd left it there then I wouldn't be on here crying foul, because at full-speed in the heat of the game, I certainly wouldn't have felt confident making that decision. But when the video referee looks at it, sees absolutely cast-iron 100% evidence of a finger on the ball while it is on the ground, and STILL claims no-try, then you've left the realms of judgement calls and entered into the realms of corruption and cheating. There is no argument about this - it was a straight out and out cheat. Disgraceful.
I have in the past made very similar calls. I think the reason I am so disgusted today is that actually, we WERE good enough today, and we DID do enough to win it. Our forwards beat their forwards, and our threequarters matched theirs. Only in the halves did they have the advantage. It's not often you can say this, but today the difference absolutely was the entirely one-sided penalty count for interference, and the corrupt video referee decision.
The problem with taking the "It's our fault, it was ours for the taking, let ourselves down" line is that whereas I used to think that was about being realistic about our prospects, I now think it's actually part of the cultural cringe of us expecting to lose, and refusing to believe we can win. Today, we were robbed - absolute highway robbery by a bent set of home officials. If that had happened to the Aussies over here, they'd be screaming blue murder from the head of the NRL to the lowliest bag-carrier, and they'd make damn sure that pressure was applied to ensure no repeat could ever happen. That's because they would start from the place where they believe they could have, and should have, won. When it happens to us, I think far too many of our British fans, players and officials start from the place of assuming that we were never good enough to win, and so we shouldn't make too much fuss because it's our fault. Yet today, we were the better team for most of that match, and the Aussies were effectively gifted the second half through the onfield referee, and then outrageously given an undeserved victory by the corrupt video referee. We damn well should be screaming blue murder. Not because we're whining and moping, but because we deserved that victory, and we should back up our players on the field with some courage and determination off the field too.
Those who argue that it's all in our hands, shouldn't make a fuss etc, are really just accepting failure. In this case, those who recognise robbery for what it is, are the ones who are demonstrating that our traditional lack of self-belief is shifting.'"
My belief was that we would win today I was absolutely assured we would at half-time too.
Our backs did exceptionally well especially Sarginson and Hall, and yes our forwards more than matched theirs.............BUT. Not for 25 minutes in the second half.
Hunts inclusion was an example of coaching with some guts and deep knowledge of what was required to help your side, yet by the time he did emerge onto the field the Aussies had already gained the initiative.
We let the game go and I wonder if that was a dressing room decision, to contain rather than keeping the ascendency and going for the jugular?
During the period from; 7 minutes into the second half until 5 minutes from time; the Australian forwards were a match for ours and as a team they outplayed us then, we were not beaten for fitness this time, but simply a lack of cohesiveness within our team over 80 minutes.
And as for delaying tackles no one was any more blatant for that than O'Loughlin.
Maybe Evans tried to do more, but we were lucky on quite a few occasions not to get penalised for some of that.
I have been supporting this game for well over 60 years and am as committed an England fan as you will find, but I do not and cannot go with today's ref being vilified in the way he is being. Overall I dont believe he had too bad a game, I can recall many worse.
The Video ref .... well if the on-field ref was to be Aussie then under no circumstance imaginable should the VF as well have been.
That I do agree was deplorable and does the NRL and Australian's no credit whatsoever.
