A blind mans guide dog could of called that one.

Another reffing f00k up
A second Saints player has his hands all over the ball, trying to strip the ball. The penalty should be Cas'
Saints get head and feed, score. Ridiculous reffing.

I'm not sure it's an all time low, the refereeing standard has stank for years and years. It makes rugby league look pathetic. Its never helped that the commentary teams over the years have pointed it out and ridiculed their own sport. It really needs sorting, call the game as it is, I wouldn't be too fussed if it's different game to game so long as both sides in any particular game get the same treatment. There is scope for referees interpretations and more respect. The trouble is you have to be able to trust a referee and I don't think we have any that are in that bracket. We need our own version of nigel owens.

The grand final is the worst, the amount of niggling and messing at the ptb, lying on that goes unpunished just leans itself to a poor spectacle and the masters of the spoil Leeds and Wigan taking the prize every year. When was the last truly classic grand final?

only reason the refs we have still have a job is because there is literally no one to replace them.

As for the Grand Final , the refereeing is so shoddy & the rules so lax that it is becoming unwatchable.

Last nights match got switched off before half time in my house.

I’m absolutely fed up with all this Sky/RFL nonsense. I would not be sad if the Sky contract was not renewed, yes it would send us back to the dark ages but it wouldn’t be any worse than it is now. I enjoyed Rugby before Sky so I’m not bothered if it left.At very least take VR away.

Consistently inconsistent.

Trouble is the clubs rely on the income. The game is propped up by Sky money.

I must admit I enjoyed Rugby League just fine before Sky.

They do need to scrap the on-field call, it can rule out perfectly good tries as we’ve seen. Also, I think they should check for everything. Case in point, that wakey try with the kicks, if there’s boot touching the ball, check everyone is onside regardless of whether the idiot on the pitch has asked to check. Check every possibility, it really wouldn’t take that much longer to draw a yellow line on the screen in line with the ball, like football’s offside graphic, and then its indisputable. Just do it automatically. Rule any doubt about any incident.

Just say “I want to check the grounding but can you make sure everything else is ok?”.

Then again, I’d also check for forward passes. Perhaps we’d be here all day!?

It’s also bloody annoying how it’s clear sometimes they get a word in their ear, such as when someone shouldn’t be getting head and feed at the scrum and it’s overturned, yet, other things that are blindingly obvious get ignored, the cynic in me says, to keep the game close or interesting. I’m also fed up of referees not calling held and still penalising a player, such as Charnley on Thursday when he piled that Wakey lad into touch. The linesman raised his flag, that’s our ball. The goons on tv agreed that’s why he’d raised the flag. Nobody shouted held, Josh had every right to continue the contest.

Anyway, like many other things, officiating is killing my love of the game, slowly.

I like the onfield call. There was too much chalking off tries when there wasn't enough video evidence to award it....which was far worse than it is now.
The only thing is we can now blame 2 of them if they get it wrong.

The game is propped up by TV money. Doesnt mean it has to be SKY. Other companies have offered better deals but the RFL simply keep going back to their chums.

A thing that annoys me is the number of times the VR sometimes takes to review a try / no try when it is patently obvious what the decision needs to be from either the first or second viewing. There was an example in the Cats v Leeds game when a Cat try was reviewed half a dozen times by Thaler when it was quite clear after one, definitely two replays that it was a try. After all the attempts to speed up the game why didn't they look at this. I know the aim is to get the 'right' decision but this is now causing avoidable delay. Even with the VR they got the Mamo try wrong which everybody seems to agree was a try.

Which organisation has offered better deals and when?

I am not interested in

1. Hearing the refs voice.
2. Hearing endless commentary about referees decisions.
3. Hearing a referee commentator (FFS how did it come to this)
4. Watching a replay screen on referee decisions.

I just want to see high impact, aggressive, fast, skillful, honest sport played by athletes amid fierce northern rivalry played on the cusp of the rules with no quarter asked or given.

Indeed. Hopefully with Eddie and that godawful producer leaving at least the presentation can improve tenfold. Just bloody commentate on what is occurring in front if your eyes instead of chopping and changing the so called narrative that Hemmings wants to impose on the game and change at will - amazing comeback, massive injury list, off field problems blah blah blah. God i hope the next commentator is decent and all the pundits go - except for Clarke and Carney, the former I don't mind at all.

Mike, what TV companies offered a better deal.
A genuine question because I wasn't aware of any other companies.

That’s was just Sky’s shot clock that the commentators made their decision from. In reality the real shot clock may have been a second or two later at starting and the Castleford stadium hooter would have sounded if the time has ran out as I can’t see Cas being involved in an agenda to help Saints rack up some points.

1. I agree to a certain extent. Hearing his voice on tele - especially on Sky as there’s always about three people speaking at once in commentary at the same time - just gets mumbled up into a really poor outlay of voice noise with the match commentator. But I’d like to hear the ref when he’s speaking to the captain and when he sends something to the VR

2. I agree. Commentary - especially on Sky with any of around five people in the commentary gantry, sometimes a few speaking at once. And I want to hear simple commentary from the commentator and punditry about tactics; not continual hot topic conversations about rules and ref decisions

3. I agree we really don’t want need Cummings at all!

4. No harm in that for me, stops the possibility of corruption

The thing that struck me about this decision was the lack of different camera angles that were shown. From behind the posts, it looked like a tiny part of the ball might just about have touched the line, but that angle can be deceptive. We really needed to see it from a side-on camera, but strangely enough, that didn't happen.

From memory the ball was grounded point down. Consequently by applying a bit of simple geometry, the centre of the ball must have touched grass before the outer edge touched the white line - TRY.

The radio commentators were apoplectic because Thaler had given a penalty against us for feet up in the scrum. That went out when Leeds's forward passes started being ignored.

Maths was never my strong point Silver, but wouldn’t the ball have to be a) totally pointed like a sharp pencil and b) perfectly perpendicular for that level of certainty to apply?
For what it’s worth I thought it was a try, but also Mamo did incredibly well to get round the Wakey lump and ground the ball, what an athlete!

IIRC

In 2007 Setanta, but the RFL simply used it as a means of upping SKYs offer and then it was rumoured that BT Sports were interested in bidding from 2016 but when it appeared clear the RFL were simply renewing with SKY, BT Sport put the money into making sure they secured access to Premier League.

No, even if the end of the ball was spherical, the centre would touch grass before the outer edge - and yes, my memory is that the axis of the ball was more or less or less vertical when touched down.