I'm going to rant.

Don't even know the final score (or care) but Bury lost, and I've just seen the single worst, and most bizarre refereeing performance of my life.

Ref comes into the changing room before the game and points to the middle of his chest "anything above here is high". We all look at each other, shrug, and go out to play. We've only travelled with 2 forwards and have backs filling in the pack, so we're very light and know we're up against it. Despite this, we start well and our defence and handling is dominant, we're looking the better side despite Culcheth having the bigger side by a mile today.

Then, 10 minutes in one of our 2nd row/centres finishes off a tackle - the lad is falling and the impact is across the upper chest. Not even over the shoulder; not high in the slightest. Nowhere near the head or even the throat. Ref takes one look and pulls a straight red.



So now we're down to 12. The ref starts pinging us for everything. Penalty after penalty and we're completely out of the game. He's blowing for not packing down properly, for being offside at every scrum, for offside at the kick-off, for any excuse he can find. He's making it up as he goes along. I don't know the count but a realistic guess would be a penalty count of about 25+ against us and about 8 against Culcheth.

25 mins into the 2nd half and a Culcheth lad suffers a really nasty injury - it looked like his leg snapped above the ankle but it seems it may have dislocated - whatever, there was an audible crack we all heard. So we leave him there and move pitches! Hope he's not too bad, the ambulance took a while to arrive and they tended to him on the pitch for ages before taking him to hospital. Believe he was given morphine.

Ref shows me his watch and it says 15:00 to go - he says "I'll play 10-15, see how it goes". We kick-off on the new pitch and he announces "25 minutes to go lads".

Ten minutes later and one of our 'veterans' puts in a clumsy tackle, a little high but not too bad. Ref pulls another straight red.

We got done for 5 'high' tackles and had 2 men sent off whereas Culcheth got done for 4 (one bust a lad's nose) and suffered no consequences.

What annoys me is this fool of a ref decided to force his own version of the rules. The rules of RL dictate what a high tackle is - not some power-trip idiot with a whistle. Culcheth agreed with us, neither was a red, probably not even a yellow, and the ref was a joke. He ruined what would have been a good game.

I fully respect referees and won't stand for any talking back or criticism (within their earshot!), but I couldn't argue when eventually lads started losing their patience - to be honest they did well to hold their tongues for 75 minutes. He was an idiot and shouldn't be anywhere near open age RL. Even Culcheth's coach was apologising after the game and saying he was clueless.

Culcheth may well have won even on an fair playing field - they're a good set of lads, played an honest game - but we weren't given a fair shot.

Rant over. Game over, beer make all better.

wildboars physio wants to know were you buy your spunges from, last week you had a team ravished with injuries and all of a sudden thought u had an easy game and all come out the woodwork, thought all ur lads would have been working with it being a saturday.

bury are a shame to rugby league

Pazzer what an absolute tool you are.

Coronus stated they travelled with only 2 forwards and were using backs to make up the numbers in the pack.

get a life and get over it. It's idiots like you who are a shame to rugby league.

I understand your frustrations Cronus. They are definately gettng worse.

We had a 'fast track' young ref yesterday and he got lots wrong for both sides.

Who was your ref btw.

Who put 50p in you?

Ayres Rock has said it for me. If you engage your brain for a moment you'll realise we're struggling with lads working, not injuries. Yesterday was no different. Out of 10 forwards only 2 could play.

As I said last week, get over it.

Not sure, and he left before we could score him. No surprise really.

He's emailing his match report this week, should be interesting.

What annoyed all of us (Culcheth included) was that he thinks he can introduce his own rules by deciding a high tackle is anything above mid chest.

He even said to one of our lads, "that was over the shoulder but I'm giving it as high". WTF???

You don't know his name, hmmm.

Anyway, you referees score goes on your team sheet, your secretary sends it in weekly unless you've had a man sent of and the ref then takes the form and sends it in.

I don't, club secretary will do. Yeah he took the team sheet with him, we'd not had chance to score it.

who give me 50p i used to come on here when the teams in this division was made up of players with heart, now have you bags just come on and moan about refs and make up excuses why you got beat. i want to know what defines a forward ???????? can your backs not take a ball in, or tackle overweight props i could understand at a higher division but anyone with heart should be able to play most positions in this divison forward/back,

Ooh get her!!



If you don't know what defines a forward and why you don't, for example, put a 13 stone youngster at prop, I suggest you're in the wrong game.

I'm very, very, very sorry we had to call the game against you. But this is getting ridiculous.

Seriously pal, let it go.

ive played 2nd row at 13 stone mate like you said your from bury not renowned for rugby, but us from st helens are born and given a rugby ball so we play with heart, to me a forward is strong runner one of your strongest tacklers and not the best with hands, just because your 16stone + overweight doesnt make you a forward and just because your 13 stone doesnt make you a back

anyway ill leave you whoppers to carry on making excuses and moaning enjoy your games and rest of the season for what its worth

The chances are though, if theyd have taken a basic team of 13, with hardly any forwards, theyd have taken a whacking off you guys, probably picked up more injuries, and so would have forfeited the next game anyway. As bad as this is gonna sound... Id rather an 18-0 forfeit against wild boars, and hopefully get a few lads back and scrape a win the following week, rather than get a 60odd - 0 whooping, more injuries, and forfeit the next two games.

As bad as it sounds Pazzer, its common sense, and if you put yourself in their shoes id imagine you'd do the same.

Its alright going on about heart, desire, spirit etc, i agree with you dont get me wrong, Storm have played off that for years, but youve got to see why they did what they did! Get off their case mate

league or union i agree with most of what you said there, i know exactly why they done it, but one of your lads pointed out that we beat you 30 - 10 so bury automatically have a better result, listen im not arguing the first point was just a joke about the wet spounge but he obviosly bit,

newton have done very well last few seasons with low numbers, wildboars were like that at one stage, ive been there since the club formed and we have sometimes trained with 5 or 6 lads, but maybe you benefit from not having a 'lets give up' mentality

anyway like i said enjoy the rest of the season back to the predictions, mine being most cup games off this weekend -6 supposedly here

Was gutted the game was called off this weekend, got a feeling we wont be playing now til the new year because this cold snap is here to stay supposedly



We need to start playing summer rugby!!

any1 from westhoughton post on here? we having a game saturday or what??

The game will be on pal, its 7 degrees and EVERYWHERE has thawed out.

not quite everywhere...the school are telling us (Bury) that its hard still in places (could be bottom end where the trees blockout any sun). Going to look tonight...

Just seen that Oldham Athletic have had to call their game off. There are still some places where it won't have heated up much.

well it is off - solid ground, hugely dissapointing.
Well we play Wildboar next week at home, least them lads arnt pussys and will play!

HOME?????

WE WERE AWAY AT WESTHOUGHTON THEY RECKON THEY GOT A SOLID PITCH?
SUMMER RUGBY PLAY WITH SOLID PITCHES, WHO CARES???????

WE PLAY WILD BOAR HOME NEXT WEEK

IF BURY WANT A GAME COME DOWN OURS!!! PLAY IN IN LAST WEEKS POSTPONED GAME AT OUR PLACE, PITCH IS ALRIGHT FOR A GAME, JUST CONTACT NWC TO RE-ARRANGE? CAN WE DO THAT?

Wish we'd thought of that a few hours ago.

I'll text the club sec & see what he thinks...problem is lads will have taken work for tomorrow, and/or be out on the lash by now so I wouldn't get your hopes up! Thought games would have been on this weekend but our pitch isn't playable by all accounts.

Boars beat Rylands 26-16 was a tough game.

Think we got Newton next week obviously weather permitting so should be good, dont think they have lost for a while.

Not optimistic about this weekend - temperatures are set to go well below 0°C, with Bury supposed to have snow from Thursday and a high of -1°C on Friday, with Saturday much the same. Most of the NW is predicted much the same - we're supposed to travel to Widnes, also in for snow and freezing temps.

Don't reckon we'll see many games until mid-Jan. I'll just be happy if we can train this week - feels like months since I've touched any balls.

Same here, hope we can train on the pitch tomorrow night, probably going to be the last time before new year that we touch a rugby ball! Storms saturday is set up...if the game is off were playing pub rugby



Without Dipper, who is majorly Under The Thumb