It speaks volumes about the intellectual vacuity of the average RL fan that they rant until the sun winks out of existence about five seconds of a match in which England had 4795 others to put the game to sleep. A game which they were leading by more than one score at half time against a terribly depleted opponent fielding four halves against a massive pack and with two hobbling players.

It speaks volumes about the integrity of the average RL fan that they can besmirch the character of two men they've never met with all the ease of splashing paint on a wall.

It speaks volumes about the moral relativism of the average RL fan that they elevate a margin call (the type of which has been repeated many times in SL since the beginning of VT - thereby damning just about every SL ref, too) to something akin to a crime against humanity whilst nobody is willing to take to task an experienced ref slandering not just one but an entire refereeing unit.

It's a sad day. But expected with clockwork regularity.

Troll done good.

Found that similar decision yet? No?

Not good for the site when one of it's admin team is going to such lengths to troll.

With only a basic understanding of the rules of the game, that was a try; nobody with a rudimentary knowledge of RL could possibly deny that, and still retain any credibility. If anyone can provide a reasonable argument against that position, I'll happily listen to it - be warned in advance though - you're wrong; it was a try.

So, whilst watching a site admin descend into an articulate but no less florid mental breakdown has a similar appeal to staring at a car crash, it doesn't change the facts of the matter; the Australian team manoeuvred an Australian ref and VR into position for a game on which their continued participation in the tournament was hanging. An incident which decided the outcome of the game was adjudicated by the Australian VR and his decision - clearly wrong - saved Australia from an embarrassing early exit from the comp.

Whether that decision was conscious and deliberate cheating by the VR, or was based on the pressure of being put in such an invidious position by the people on whom his continued ability to make a living relies, it's still cheating, so by any standards of fair play, should be addressed.

Anything else is just noise.

Except that he's not trolling.

I bet Matty Smith, O'Loughlin and Widdop can't believe their luck. There were they thinking the English fans might point to their near total inability to target the Australian's lack of tonnage with a good kicking game during all of the second half. There were they thinking people might call for one or two heads given Inglis (a player who has been exposed as very dodgy under the high ball in more than one match) could easily have positioned himself in a garden chair from the 40th minute.

Who'd have thought THAT decimated Kangaroo side which came over nearly a decade ago and won in the last seconds would be beaten to the bottom of the pile by a hodge-podge assortment using tactics even the great Andrew Johns thought ridiculous?

But this is the difference between English fans and the Australians. English fans wallow in defeat - whining and moaning about "bent" officials. They LOVE DEFEAT because it gives them all the bandwidth they need to vomit forth the bitterness and cynicism which festers inside them.

It's the English disease.

The reverse in this case.

There are two camps here : a camp who are spitting chips not because they wallow in defeat but because they recognise that they should have won, and were denied unjustly. And a much smaller camp (you and ...?) who prefer to continually bang the "we're not good enough" drum, making excuses for the daylight robbery which took place because it's easier to cry "woe is me" and sink into self-criticism and self-pity, than it is to grow a pair and back up a winning on-field performance with a winning off-field mentality.

Rugby league is a game of belief, and those players believed they could win, which is why they scored in the last minute after putting themselves in a position to do so despite a very dubious second-half refereeing display which greatly assisted the Australian side. For them to be cheated once by a clearly corrupt video referee decision is bad enough. To then suggest, as you are doing, that this is irrelevant because they were never good enough is, frankly, pathetic. It's that sort of spineless acquiescence to having sand kicked in our faces which has led to the acceptance of poor performances, poor coaching and poor preparation before now : "well we're cr@p, so there's no point complaining because we'll never win". Nonsense. There's a reason the Aussies win, and that's because they will do anything to do so, from being ruthless with players and coaches to demanding their own biased referees. They would never roll over and take this sort of nonsense were the roles reversed, and that's because they expect to win. Unless we start throwing some punches back, then we may as well bend over and prepare for yet more shafting.

There is an element of hopeless and unconstructive defeatism on this thread, but it's coming from you, although I doubt you appreciate that.

Having first hand experience of the NRL's Krakenesque corporate legal team I would pay good money to watch Roy explain in certainties why the refereeing team is "bent".

Indeed, I'll gladly pass on their address in Sydney should he feel sufficiently brave enough to prove his point.

My money is on the behemoth, tho.

I think we hae sufficient evidence to damn their character.

Let's take our evidence to a neutral jury. We have Australia who have dominated the sport for decade, losing by 8 points at half time. They are on the brink of not making the final.

For this deciding match we have two Australian referees. The second half penalty count was 5-0 Australia. Poor England discipline and great Ozzie discipline? No.

Conveniently for Australia they were given 2 "holding down penalties" on last tackle TWICE.

But what about England's penalty claims! Blatently high shot on Watkins, ignored. Australia hitting the kicker late on every set. Sometimes reverting to American football tactics and hitting our kicker after they ran 10m forward to chase a kick:

England gather ball after legal Scrum. Referee orders scrum to be find for no legitamate reason at all.

Then there was the farce at the ruck. Not a second bite. Sometimes a third, fourth attempt at the tackle on floorny Australia. Again no penalty. Even when we made a break in last couple of minutes and there was blatently professional fouls of holding down occurring. Nothing!

Want the evidence that the referee was corrupt, please read the above.

I never try to blame a ref or criticise them as I think they have a hard job. But yesterdays game is a total farce. I actually feel a bit sorry for the refs in question as they were put in an impossible position IMO and I don think they went out with a view to deliberately giving the Australians an unfair advantage but, the second halve on field riffing performance was at the very best questionable, and the Hall no try is unforgiveable and I just wish that anyone from the English camp would come out and say it, the Aussies would

Just to recap: the Australian commentary team were divided on whether Hall scored. So, this notion that[i "only Mugwump in the ENTIRE WORLD thinks Hall didn't score"[/i is busted from the outset.

LIke most, I initially thought VT was a good idea because it would end interminable rows about bad calls in big games.

Unfortunately, VT has led to innumerable questionable calls which any rational person might think impossible given the ref's ability to recall and then re-recall action.

But if Roy thinks the video ref is "bent" solely because he disallowed the Hall try then [uI'm calling every ref that ever made a bad call since the beginning of VT bent too.[/u

Congratulations, you've won your argument and destroyed the game.

Maybe the referee believed what he said. Have you considered that possibility? Or is the most obvious answer just that bit too difficult for your addled brain?

Hang on, so the REFEREE is either bent or incompetent when a clown like Charnley can't even be bothered to line up straight [uAND THEN TIPS THE BALL OUT OF HIS OPPONENT'S HANDS?[/u

Too bloody right they would. Imagine the apocalyptic levels of whinging if the boot had been on the other foot. Sheens is a whinger in the finest Aussie tradition.

They’ve put pressure on the officials to get their way before every international series I can ever remember. They leave nothing to chance. Not content with that they now want their own blokes in charge too.

This time we have the NRL interpretations adopted for going to the video ref and for reviewing incidents during play. Australia lose a game and they then decide they want their own ref for the game with England. NZ do the same for their game versus Samoa.

We meekly go along with it and wonder why we’re hard done to when there’s a 50/50 call. There were a few that went against us at the weekend that may not have been down to the ref being “bent” but just unconsciously more likely to favour his home team.

In the 2008 World Cup final would an Aussie video ref have given that penalty try? No way!

England RL officials should stop taking this BS. We have the players capable of beating both Australia and New Zealand if we’re given a fair crack. That’s obvious to anyone. We shouldn’t let them down by allowing the Aussies and Kiwis to get the advantage of having their own refs and NRL interpretations. Why do we always back down?

I think you're losing it, what are you talking about?

In fighting terms it's a bit like the Ashton - Tuilagi punch-up. Mugchump has picked the wrong battle, been walloped from pillar to post, comprehensively embarrassed and out-matched, yet he won't go down, and now he's lingering with a sulky look on his face.

I actually think he tried to make a serious, if vacuous, point to start with but doesn't know how recover from so many blows or how to leave with dignity.

And now he appears to be posting nonsense to get a rise, so yes, trolling.

You sure?

Again, this is such straw man flummery. That last decision was bent. To suggest otherwise is unsupportable, because there is no other legitimate explanation.

You want to compare other video refereeing decisions, then fine. I've seen plenty I disagree with. In all those previous cases, one or more of four things have been involved :

1) a camera angle comes to light AFTER the decision which would have changed it (eg an angle showing an off-ball incident which wasn't picked up initially)
2) there is an element of interpretation involved (eg obstruction tries)
3) the evidence is inconclusive (eg can't see the ball because of bodies)
4) the video ref forgot to look at one particular angle (eg grounding is fine, but offside wasn't checked)

In each case, I've disagreed with decisions, but in each case I have understood how those decisions can come about, even if I disagree with them.

Yesterday none of these criteria applied.

1) No camera angle has come to light showing any other pertinent information.
2) There is no element of interpretation involved if an attacker's finger is on a live ball on the ground in the in-goal area. It's not a judgement call like obstruction, it's a simple was it or wasn't it call, and it was.
3) The evidence was conclusive. We've all seen the stills and the slo-mo. The ball was grounded, very clearly.
4) The angles were all looked at, repeatedly.

In other words, the try HAD to be awarded. This is why I keep saying it's not a margin call - there was no margin to call. We have all the information we need, no evidence of illegality elsewhere, a clear view of the grounding, and a rule which is not open to interpretation. It HAS to be given. Every single referee knows that. All that guff about rolling it back to look at it fullspeed, or "Hall didn't celebrate enough", or "oooh, that's morally not a try as he only brushed it" is utterly irrelevant. None of those things are in the laws of the game as being even remotely relevant to whether a try has been scored. Indeed the case is even stronger because the laws of the game are very clear that if there is doubt, then benefit of the doubt should go to the scoring side and the try should be awarded. To disallow it, he would have to be absolutely certain that Hall did not touch it down. You're welcome to explain how any reasonable person could be absolutely certain that Hall didn't touch it down, but I wouldn't advise it. So I understand why on-field Sutton didn't give it because of the speed, but there is simply no reason for off-field Sutton to deny it. He HAS to give it.

Yet he didn't. The only way he can avoid giving that try is to make a conscious decision to disapply the rules. He's seen the ball touched by Hall on the ground. He's deemed it is still live when he does so. He's accepted there are no external reasons to disallow the try in back play. Yet he has then made the ludicrous claim that Hall's finger was not in contact with the ball when it was on the ground - which is quite clearly contradicted by hard, factual evidence which you can find on this thread, or indeed at the game on the replays. It is actually impossible for him not to have been able to see that Hall's finger was in contact with the ball on the ground. This was not a judgement call. It was a factual event. He cheated.

If I wanted to be really, really generous, I'd say that maybe he didn't set out to cheat at the start of that game, and it's clear that earlier in the game when faced with an obstruction decision, he made the right call which went against Australia. The difference, however, is that the first call was not a game-decider. There was still plenty of time to go, and much more could happen. If he disallowed it, nobody was going to name him as the man who knocked Australia out of their own home tournament, so he retained his professionalism and made what I thought was the right call, but which WAS a judgement call. The final decision, though, was very different. It was NOT a judgement call, and the outcome of the game did indeed hang on that very decision, as every single viewer, fan, player and administrator knew. He saw the try, he knew it was a try, and we watched as he desperately tried to find a way of disallowing it, ultimately going back to run it at full speed so as to try to obfuscate the clear slow-motion evidence of Hall's finger, on the ball, on the ground. And then he cheated.

Maybe he's not a bad man. Maybe he didn't set out to cheat. But he did. No referee would have made that decision other than one who did not want to award the try under any circumstances. It was a failure of integrity and honesty, and even if it was fleeting and isolated, it was still disgraceful.

To be fair to Charnley he was in the position where the play the ball should have happened, Michael Jennings moved off the mark to make Charnley offside, penalty maybe could have gone the other way, or let the knock on stand

If Roy will give me the name and address of his supervisor I will pen a quick letter detailing why he should resign his position.

Problem you have there is that his supervisor will also know the rules that you do not, so will probably agree that the only reason not to give the try is that, for some reason other than the rules of the game, you just don't want to.

Help yourself, all referees are responsible to the referees' controller at the RFL. Fill your boots. Tell them why the guy who just won referee of the year in London and the southeast should be binned for having a clear and accurate understanding of both the rules and the concept of refereeing integrity.

You're being a plonker, trying to play the man and not the ball. You've lost this argument, this thread, and now are in danger of losing both your reputation for being rational, and your dignity. So go ahead and write. I'd love to see the reply.

I think you 2 camps comment is silly.

I do not believe it should have been given as a try. I believe we did not deserve to win and were woeful in the second half against a poor team. BUT I do believe the decision needs questioning. I want to understand why it was disallowed. If as the ref suggested it was due to a rising ball being touched that was not the case. Why did the ref say that if the VR didn't? If the VR did, why when the evidence suggested otherwise? If the officials were so good how can they have made that decision on those apparent grounds? Were they acting independently? That's my only concern. We did not do enough to win and so the result itself is not the issue.
If the decision can be explained properly and consistent with what we all heard then I would be happy there were no dark forces at work.

Indeed.

I would argue that a neutral video ref would've given the try.

Would an Aussie video ref have given NZ that penalty try in the WC final in 2008? No way.