Dead right AdeyBull, Bull's have seemed to have pee'd off a lot of folks by having the audacity to win...

As we seem to be getting drowned in repetitive discussions of the perceived collective and individual failings: time to gaher it all in one place methinsk …

Just wait until we get robot-refs who never make a mistake....someone will still find fault. Refs are human. Players are human. Posters on here, by and large, are human. We all mistakes (except posters on here, natch.)

Alibert is a disgrace, didn't seem to have a clue what he was doing when he was ref for us a few weeks ago.

Ever since McCallum left, the standard of refereeing has gone completely down the pan.

I agree in the main and to be fair the referees have a much more difficult job than the Video refs who I would expect to get it right 99.99% of the time but sadly that is not the case.

adctually i though alibert did a god job as VR.....he caught pretyy much everything that was asked of him..

he checked,checked again the triple checked everything that was asked of him...

alibert was'nt the issue in this game, ian smith and his touchie missing forward passes was the major issue.

What we need is a refs/refereeing board, to keep some of the more hysterical types in one place

Not really. The refs were crap then, too!

so the consensus is that webb was offside and that the decision was correct to the letter of the law, i look forward to the rest of the season being refereed to the letter of the law with every offside and every slow play of the ball penalised

Three cheers for Mr Thierry Alibert. What an absolute pleasure it was to see a video referee doing his job fear free. Imho 'our' referees worry too much about getting a decision wrong and, say what you like, I believe their decisions ARE influenced by what town they hail from and who they live near. As far as Alibert was concerned the Bulls V Rhinos game could have been Martians V Aliens, he had no agenda whatsoever and as such his decision making was both quick and absolutely spot on every time he was called upon.

It might change over time, but right now Aliberts impartiality makes him THE man for the video referees job.

Oh, and if anyone knows 'Stevo' can you tell him Specsavers have a special BOGOF deal all Easter.

if the refs were perfect then who the hell will we have to blame when our teams lose, no one and were's the fun in that

Indeed it wasn't. I'm surprised how little of the rules many seem to know. If it needs to be defined, a "pass" is defined in the rules as a "throw of the ball". That's it, end of. Nobody but an imbecile could define what happened here as a "throw of the ball".

Check out how briefly a player has to have control of the ball to ground it in a try for it to be allowed in hundreds of VR descisions . If a fingertip applies downward pressure it is a try.. therefore a flick-on is a pass of the ball .how can one be deemed as being in control of the ball and not he other ? so..if it the ball goes forwards after the flick it is a forward pass if another attacking player receives it . if it touches the grass it is a knock-on . if the player that last touched it gathers it before it hits the grass it is play on .
at the end of the day as they say.. the match result will stand and there's no point bleating about it .
all rules are open to individual's interpretations .
some you win , some you lose.. well done the bulls . beat us fair and square .

well.. so you should.. you had 14 men against 12 at one point

It wasn't a touchdown, so those rules don't apply.

It could be regarded as a "flick", as you say, but then the ref has to make the usual decision as to whether it was forwards or backwards. To do this, as is said in commentary time and time again, the ref looks primarily at the direction the hands move to determine whether it is forward or backward. In this instance, the flick was a very clear Larry Grayson stylee flap forward, and the ball very clearly went forwards. Correct decision.

On the Webb offside (again correct decision given, and well spotted by the ref), I have a vague recollection of a Wellens try being disallowed for the same thing, but this wasn't on the telly, I just remember hearing about it on here.

All this fuss over whether it was a pass or knock on only arises because of the rule that forward passes cannot be refered to the VR. But was Alibert any better able to decide whether the ball went forward because he first ruled it to be a knock on than if he had deemed it to be a pass? Why was he capable of ruling that this "knock on" went forward when he is deemed to be incapable of determining whether Leeds' try came from a forward pass?

It has already been mentioned that refs rule on forward passes, largely on the basis of direction of the passers hands. Why cant VR's make rulings on the same basis, with the existing caveat of benefit of the doubt in favour of the attacking team?

surely your avatar should read wanted dead [iand[/i alive

There is no legitimate fuss over whether it was a pass or a knock-on. It cannot have been a pass, because it was not "thrown".

And as has already been pointed out, for a knock-on decision, only movement relative to the ground needs to be decided, whereas for a forward pass, movement of the ball relative to the ground is irrelevant. Chalk and cheese.

Only if you consider the present laws to be sacrosanct. I was trying to suggest, obviously not very well, that shouldnt always be the case.

In the case of the forward pass, the de facto rule is the way that refs interpret it. As Cummins said "we look at the direction of the hands". The refs havent decided to ignore the literal rule set out by the lawmakers out of spite, they've done so because they cannot practically apply it in a match situation. If "we look at the direction of the hands" is accepted to be the forward pass rule then the objections to using the VR to adjudicate no longer hold water.

do you have the ruling or rfl dictat that says that is the case? I ask because your explanation of the "momentum rule" with regards to passing is a little lacking and in the standard explanation of a "knock on" what cibaman has put is entirely correct!

There could also be legitimate fuss over what constitutes a "pass" because being "thrown" because that is a very strange definition of a "pass" which can range from discounting a large amount of offloads and what we would describe as a pass to including almost anytype of action

Similarly it doesn't follow that simply not falling into the definition of a "pass" means it automatically applies as a "knock on"

It's also worth noting that a knock on requires that the ball be propelled forward, I don't think it would be controversial to argue jib didn't propelled the ball forward but backwards and it was simply the force already applied on the ball which caused it to go forward, in which case both giving and denying could be justified under the existing rules

I don't think there would be anything to lose by tightening up these rules, I have seen decisions go both ways and people argue both sides

Similarly we wouldn't lose anything by making the rules regarding the Webb incident a little clearer especially with regards to defining when Webb would become inside again

According to Robbie Paul (not the greatest source admittedly) on the SLS this is a new law this season. A player who is out of play at the play the ball is only brought back into play at the next play the ball. This is certainly much clearer than the highly subjective idea of being in play after they have lost any advantaged gained.

I personally don't care about the laws or the rules, only how the referees interpret them.

Over forty years of watching rugby league tells me that regrettably (as a Leeds fan) Jones-Buchanan 'knocked on' the offload from Watkins.

Can I assume you were a player/coach at one time

Coach Justin Morgan slammed referee Ben Thaler for his part in the defeat, saying: "There is no excuse for our errors and I am not saying we deserved to win but there is a very common denominator every time there is a poor game of rugby league and that is Mr Thaler."

He went on to say that if he was a player he'd be dropped until he got upto the standard required.

With only a small pool of referees is it currently possible to punish a referee for poor performances? It seems there's no incentive for referees to be 'on the ball' every single week.

(Link: www.sporthull.co.uk/rugby_league ... p?ID=12206)

(Link: www.sporthull.co.uk/rugby_league ... p?ID=12206)