I think they were bargain bucket vouchers for KFC. Salford fans in a desperate attempt to woo him back into "liking" them again.

Wrong. The video showed the ball OFF the floor at all times.

Which angle did it show that the ball had touched the ground, never mind grounded?
There was absolutely no evidence to even suggest a try, Silverwood just went with the on field call of try, even though he could clearly see, like everyone else there was no evidence at all.
He should have said to Child, "sorry James, i can't see where the ball has even got anywhere near the ground so i'm gonna have to over turn your decision"
If he is unable to make that call then the VR needs to be scrapped.

The point is that the onfield descision was TRY.

The VR then had to provide conclusive evidence not to give the try. From all the shots at the time nothing was conclusive to show whether the ball was or wasn't grounded, hence the VR has to go with the onfield decision.

You can debate whether or not the precedence of onfield vs VR calls should be changed , but not that the VR should have disallowed a try when he could'nt tell either way if it had been grounded or not.

It was absolutely conclusive that Solomona didn't ground the ball. I've no idea what you (and Silverwood) were watching.

The game where Childs said I've got a try and Silverwood wasn't able to prove conclusively that it wasn't.

The fault was with Childs' infield call - had he said 'no try' check VR then it wouldn't have been awarded since the VR couldn't tell if it was grounded or not.

I strongly suggest you go to your local opticians then.

Wow, you clearly have no understanding of the VR criteria.

The footage at the time showed that the ball had not touched the ground at any point. Everyone could see it and Jonathan Davies was clearly amazed at the decision. That clearly meets the criteria for the VR to make a conclusive decision that it wasn't a try.

So VR Silverwood thought "Oh I can clearly see throughout the whole movement that it wasn't grounded, but I'd better not upset James as he thought it was..."

Are you Dr K and suggesting its an RFL conspiracy against Salford ?

No, Silverwood is just incompetent. Clearly.

How much more conclusive do you need when no shot shows the ball anywhere near the ground at any point?

This case has nothing to do with the VR criteria of referring a try and the subsequent VR decision.
That comes in to play when the video ISN'T conclusive. In this case it was. The video clearly shows the ball above the ground and not touching it at any point.

The problem wasn't with Child either. I think it's perfectly reasonable to send that up as a try. The problem in this case was with the Video Ref himself not looking closely enough at the video. A lazy decision and one that should not ever happen from a Video Ref.

This.

You think its "perfectly reasonable" for Childs to award a try when he didn't actually see the ball being grounded, yet unreasonable that Silverwood declined to make a call on the video that didn't conclusively show it either way ?

Its only the video that Sivlerwood didn't see at the time (zoomed in from behind) that shows that the ball clearly wasn't grounded.

You must have been watching a different TV broadcast than the rest of the forum then as it was clear from the 2 angles that the ball wasn't within about 4 inches of the ground at any point when Solomona had the ball and then lost it

So why did Silverwood decide, that with all his years of refereeing experience, that he was unable to make what you suggest is such an obvious call ?

I suggest you're being influenced by what occurred subsequently, not basing it on the evidence at the time.

Its Childs that shouldn't have awarded a try based on something he didn't actually see.

But hey, as they say, its all today's chip wrappings

Under the laws of the game, it had to be sent up as a try...not seeing the grounding is not a reason not to award a try.

However, how a bloke with the considerable visual tools at his disposal can make such an obvious error is beyond me.

Clearly not grounded.

Just watched it again - and the original footage that Silverwood saw not the subsequent angle.

My thoughts at the time still stand - only Richard Silverwood (and, it seems, shinymcshine) could possibly believe there was any element of doubt whatsoever about it. The ball clearly doesn't get grounded. I would fully expect him to be dropped next week based on past precedent.

Probably in the same way Ganson gave Chris Green a try for Hull at Magic Weekend a couple of years ago, blatant human error. Everyone who ever saw that would have said it was a no try (the Green incident).

Yet later on he sent another up to the video ref and said " try I HAVE SEEN IT ON THE LINE" when it got nowhere near the line and silverwood who by now must have put his spectacles on overturned it, as it at no point got near the line.

An on-field ref has to make an instant decision. In that situation, yes I think it's perfectly reasonable for a ref to think the ball touched the ground.

Yes, I think it's unreasonable, in fact I think it's unacceptable for a video ref, with access to numerous video clips, slow mo etc to see a video of the ball NEVER touching the ground, to give that as a try. The 2 situations are completely different.
The video was not inconclusive. It was 100% conclusive. You could see the ball, at all times, above the ground.


Silverwood did see that view, because he was looking at the same video as is shown on tv live. He was commenting on the same video I, and everybody else was seeing.

It was a monumental cockup from Silverwood and had nothing to do with Child.

Given the stupid rule that forces the ref to guess on a decision before he refers it, Child did nothing wrong; he was unsighted, so he went with what looked like from his angle, a common sense interpretation. For Silverwood to fail to see what everyone else did - that it was never anywhere near grounded - is totally unacceptable.

this has long since been a bug bear of mine over the video ref, as we've seen on sky in the past, they very often only look at two angles, 3 at best rather than making use of all cameras, you heard silverwood say, have we got anything else, obviously someone from the bbc was shaking his head at him, only for 15 minutes later, look we've got the camera shot from all the way down the field.

I occasionally wonder if it's done deliberately on sky so eddie et al can maintain their continued faux outrage at 'ANYTHING'

Yep I agree with that. We've often seen that situation where Sky suddenly find another camera angle to those that were shown to the VR.

However in this case the long shot from behind was shown to Silverwood and he even commented on the shot that showed the ball above the ground at all times. Yet bizarrely he stuck to the "can't see" line that, going by his comments, it seemed as if he was determined to use as soon as he started. IIRC his very first comments were something along the lines of "can't see what happens. Well it's been sent up as a try." After only a few seconds of looking at just 1 camera shot. He seemed determined that he couldn't see what happened and so wasn't looking properly at the other shot from behind.

As others have said, it's inexcusable. Ben Thaler got demoted for a week after trying to help the walking, talking Monty Python sketch that is Thierry Alibert reach a not batsh|t decision in Catalans. By comparison this is far worse and at least on a par with the Ganson VR decision in the Hull derby game that spelled the end of his career.