It's a source of bemusement how openly biased the oceanic refs are against the ''poms''. Anyone remember the raynor no try at the cake tin in the 2006 tri nations?

It's obscene.

One thing that is guaranteed is a completley nothing penalty in the first 5 minutes to aus/nz which gifts them an early attack on the line.

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed that before. It happened again at cardiff, in the first 5 minutes england were penalised at the ruck in midfield, for nothing. There was no high tackle, no real lying on.....there was just nothing of anything.

I can guarantee, 100% in the semi at wembley nz will get a penalty in the first 5 minutes and when you see the replay nothing will have happened.

Bentham has had a shocking game! He is giving New Zealand everything!

It's the Phil Betham show tonight. Ruined a perfectly good game by giving everything to the kiwis. Disgrace.

good, so its not just me then

British refs fear any backlash from Aussies and will always give 50/50's to aus or nz

So let's get this straight.

English refs are bias against England because they're trying not to be.
And Australian/NZ refs are bias against England full stop.

Well, that's a nice neat excuse for every England loss ever.

No one is making excuses for losses, they would happen regardless. But the bias refereeing exacerbates the situation.

Everyone can see it, people just don't always come out and say it because of the tiresome inevitable response from the ockers, like the one you just delivered, regular as clockwork. Well done.

Riiiiiight.

So now you can't even be called out on your whinging because it's "tiresome and inevitable". You guys have really got this down to a tee now. Well done.

The only bias involved is from fans of the losing team. Imagine that.

Take Glen Black for example. Appointed to the GB v Australia game in the Tri Nations in 2004. Wayne Bennett whines and says he lacks experience and it's a crap appointment, pressure on Black, referees the game, Australia win 12-8, then Bennett comes out and says he has a great game and he would be happy to have him referee again.

Sheens does it all the time too. He has obviously not done it yet because he got a NZ referee against England. Silverwood and Bentham will referee them against Fiji and Ireland so it's possible he will whine then.

Jesus this is embarrassing.

Poms whinged for years about getting neutral refs. Now when they do they whinge because NZ refs are bias, because..... um.... you know.... they work in the NRL. Then when they get one of their own they're bias because "they're trying not to be". FMD. Yet there's not even an ounce of acceptance that the fans doing the whinging are actually the only ones who are bias.

Why would anyone not whinge about blatant bad refeering, perpetrated agsinst their team, year after year?

Maybe if they were reasonable and realised their twisted view was entirely the result of bias for their team and had no basis in reality. Just a thought.

''poms'' whinge for years because they consistently cop a bad deal from the refs. It doesn't matter what nationality they are. The issue is the powerhouse that aus/nz are in the world of rugby league. They run everything. If a ref gives a few bad calls against the aussies they well and truly kick off and it could be the end of their career at international level. Their nationality is irrelevant.

It's a sh*t thought. Most of the calls are blatantly wrong. E.g. Tom briscoes no try, wembley 2011. That's not bias, it's a wrong call. Why would anyone not whinge about that?

FFS.

You think you can use one example of a call YOU think was wrong and it's proof of some global conspiracy. "Most of the calls are blatantly wrong" translates to "all of the calls we don't like we say are wrong".

"The issue is the powerhouse that aus/nz are in the world of rugby league. They run everything. If a ref gives a few bad calls against the aussies they well and truly kick off and it could be the end of their career at international level."

This libellous nonsense is just embarrassing. It's like people who claim the Challenge Cup draw is rigged or that the RFL doesn't want certain clubs to do well for some obscure reason. It's just ridiculous conspiracy theories from people who are known for them. There is one fundamental way to explain this - England still haven't won anything. That's it.

So sayeth every whinging ocker across the annuls of RL history - until a contentious decision goes against them, or god forbid, they lose.

And then the dummies fly, hobbly-bobs a-wobbling in rage. Indeed, certain ocker coaches have been forced to quit for losing their rag over decisions and abusing officals.

It has been noticeable so far that the 50/50 calls rarely balance out 50/50 and the 'big' team tends to benefit.

Wow.. We all see things differently... As an Englishman watching this game from AUS... I thought Bentham was awful...

Mainly because he gave everything to France... At one point I thought he had been paid to keep the score respectable!!

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

have you bumped into australias version of derren brown?how you thought NZ were hard done to by the ref is just perverse

Ha ha ha ...

No Derren or anyone else who uses NLP, hypnosis or language of influence come near... But that's another story!

I was watching the game alone, and drew my opinions myself... I do not believe that the kiwis were hard done by, as you assert... They were by far the better team, France were disappointingly uncompetitive... In my view, which may be different from the masses, the refereeing mitigated the uncompetitiveness somewhat...

As an example I though the game continued whilst players were treated for injury.. Yet the ref stopped the clock at almost every stoppage for one minor treatment or other... Each of the stoppages slowed the game and gave france recovery time.

Anyone who thinks a kiwi referee would be biased towards Australia seriously needs to have a word with themselves.

I thought Henry did ok in the first game, gave some to aus and others to England, was England lack of composure that cost them not the ref, I don't think Bentham did we at all, watched a couple of mins before turning it off move, move, move then a penalty whilst the nz player was still moving, then he gave one for a flop I think the nz player was still moving along the floor as the 2nd French player moved in to stop him he said held then blow for a pen a second later.

We need some Swiss Refs that will be neutral