On the assumption that the referee was presented with a split decision who should he side with officially?

I note that the role and jurisdiction of the in goal judge is not defined in your reference material.

For me I'd say the touch judge should be responsible for any touchline decisions, including touch in-goal leaving the in goal judge as arbiter on dead-ball line decisions.

My interpretation of the rules, as written, is that it is the touch judge (not the ref) is the final arbiter in the circumstance of ANY call relating to touch or touch in-goal. So strictly speaking, if the touch judge disagrees with the ref on a touch or touch in-goal decision the ref should actually concede to the touch judge in this circumstance only.

So, given that currently in-goal judges don't appear to have any formal status in the rules in this area, then yes, he should have gone with the touch judge and not the touch in-goal judge! However, I bet if you ask him now he will say both he and the in-goal judge thought it was a try and therefore it was 2 against 1... even though the rules don't back him up there either!

I'm not sure you're right here. The final call is always the refs, except for conversions, when 2 touch judges overrule the ref.

No idea about the in-goal judges, my course didnt cover them

Flag down for both, but arm up, and pointing to the 20m for tap 20, and arm down pointing between the sticks for a dropout

Err, no it's not, read the laws!

i haven't received mine in the post yet, but I will do.

The final decision is the refs, as the touch judges are only supposed to indicate something if the ref asks. In reality it doesn't work like that though, and the ref should take the TJs view as he is best placed to give that decision.

Well I am pretty sure he didn't point ot the 20, and pointed between the sticks instead, but I am not sure he had his arm up, if that makes a difference.

Either way, he was incorrectly over ruled. And of more point to any debate of who's call it is, the touch judge definately had the best view of all the officials.

According to Thaler:
He had definitely seen it grounded but wasn't sure where.
The touchie said the Midget player didn't ground it at all - in Thaler's opinion [isince he 'knew' this not to be the case [/ithe evidence of the touch judge was therefore unreliable and had to be disregarded .
Therefore: he fell back to the in goal judge who agreed with him that it had been grounded and said it was a try.

There is a certain logic to that - except the in goal judge turned out to be wrong.

C'est la vie, it just made Leeds have to earn the win a little more, which is a good thing in these times of plodding through regular seasons without really trying



Now let there be no more slagging off of our pet referee

This, and as you correctly mention kicks at goal, is the only time he does not have final decision!!!

Now, if you are arguing that Thaler gave the try as he, as the ref, clearly felt he grounded the ball and therefore it was not actual a touch in-goal call then I agree... but his touch judge also disagreed with that!!!

If that is indeed from the 'horses mouth' then surprise, surprise... I told you that is what he would say!



He does know the rules and on reflection he knows he has no choice but to say that, even then he is still on dodgy ground overruling his touch judge in strict accordance with the laws.

Mr Armadillo, you are missing someting,you are right that the TJ rules if the ball has gone out of play and he waved his flag to indicate that

the issue was if the ball was grounded before that, the referee rules on tries and did so as he had the opinion it had been grounded before that (probably with the help of the ingoal judge - i think the term in goal shows what he is there for and what he is there to assist/rule on)

it is common for a TJ to raise the flag to indicate the ball or player are in touch but a preceding incident in the field of play mean the referee awards a decision based on that, its not overruling the TJ in those incidents or this one

No, I am not missing this at all and yours is a very valid argument and I did make it myself already in my other posts.

If he says he clearly saw the ball being grounded BEFORE entering touch in-goal then to be fair he should have just ruled that BUT people are reporting he consulted the in-goal judge before awarding the try and didn't speak to the touch judge at all! MjM reports that he asked the in-goal touch judge for confirmation of the location of the touch-down, not actually whether he agreed with him because he signalled (by standing still) that it was a try in his opinion. As I said, surprise, surprise... that is what I would have said if I was him as well!

The things is, we are getting into detailed technicalities and strict literal definitions of the wordings of the laws. Thaler's mistake IMO was not to actual bring both the touch judge & in-goal judge together, have a chat and then make a ruling.

Of course, it doesn't help that we all seem to agree that the touch judge appears to be right and that Thaler (and the in-goal judge) appear to be wrong.

it was still a crap wrong decision no matter what bull he comes out with

Watching it back on the iplayer, the only person that thought it was a try was Ben Thaler.

and in the goal judge


dont forget him

shall we not mention smiths forward pass later in the game and his look round to see if anyone else picked it up then
ya know the one we scored from

The difference is, we touched the ball to score

its a slight difference

one which according to Thaler you dont need to score a try

I guess what I'm saying is your right

No try for me either - i cant see how the officials came to the decision at all

Just looked at it on SLTV. It's not the best view but it's a heck of a lot clearer than the in goal judge could ever have seen. I agree, looks like Smith gets the last touch, but the touch judge has the best view by a long way. I have no idea how the in goal judge sees a try and the touch judge doesn't.

I've also just looked at it on SLTV & agree that in the absence of slomo it's a very hard call to make but would suggest that there is a case for benefit of the doubt to Hodgson.
However, as I think has been said earlier on this thread & to balance our indignation re "that" try, there is no doubt that the pass from Smith to Hall that led to the kick for the equalising McGuire is at least a metre forward.
So you win some & you lose some but possibly the Giants have more to moan about than we do.

Just watched back about 12 times on the iPlayer, frame by frame and Hodgson never touches the ball - big mistake by young Ben IMO.

Indeed. I realised the RFL had changed some of the absolute requirements for having full control and downward pressure but I thought you still had to actually touch the ball at some point if you wanted to be awarded a try.