God are u lot still making excuses up about getting beat by cas.move on u were out muscled by at times 12 men and hardaker is fine hes even changed his tune on his twitter account from getting hit with an arm to it being a shoulder now. Wonder if this would still be being talked about if leeds had won i doubt it.

You don't like? Then don't look. Eeejit.

If they did looks like they were as wrong as Roby.

It can happen.

Appears the mist has even cleared from around Hardaker's own close up view of what hit him.

Chase at least showed some concern for his felled opponent, perhaps that's what saved him from a shoeing - not that a battle raging around Hardaker would have done him any good.

Might have forced the referee to make the correct decision in the aftermath though, which might have benefited Leeds rather than Castlefords' next two opponents.

It might have equally influenced the referee to send those players seeking to take the law in to their own hands instead of the original perpetrator. Afterall Roby had adjudged Hardaker to have knocked on in what he appeared to rule as a legitimate tackle.

If you choose to roll that dice then you also have to live with the potential consequences. Supposing there had been a mass brawl - Leeds might have only had Ablett, Kirke and Bailey available for selection next week.

What are you reading? The last page or so before you wrote that was centred on Leeds' pack not getting involved enough. Not really excuse making is it?

I'd say the attitudes of the 2 packs could be seen as an explanation though, wouldn't you?

I'd roll that dice personally if it means we have a pack of forwards that will not take a backwards step.

I'd also roll that dice to "help" a clearly inept referee make the correct decision rather than the patently incorrect decision he did make.

Didn't do Siants any harm. Cross got a red, Clarke got a yellow and Saints went on to beat 12 men.

Have you seen the make-up of the current Leeds pack ? I'm guessing it'll be mainly pink blusher with no foundation. A pack in the image of coach and assistant coach ...... well hardly.



The Leeds players reaction on the pitch didn't suggest they felt the tackle was that bad. You can usually read quite a lot into the way player's react to incidents.



On that occasion it didn't on a different day with a different official it might, you don't know anymore than I do.

How many players has Tim Roby sent off at SL level and what were the circumstances ?

I can only think of one instance thus far and IIRC the player who reacted to some low level provocation and took the law into his own hands was the one sent to the dressing rooms.

You roll that dice.

Maybe the pack would have stepped in if it were a game where they were really bothered about the result, and up for the game. Over the years the Leeds pack has shown it capable of handling itself, and getting involved in a bit of handbags when warranted.

Also, I don't think players steaming in has any affect on the ref if he didn't see it. I doubt he'd be a decent ref if he let his judgement be impaired by some fighting

Agree totally. When I saw Chase go hunting I knew he was going to do something rash. It was one of those moments when you follow someones movements and you can see the pure intent. My first reaction was, "He's done another Ropati", followed by bewilderment that the Leeds players hadn't reacted and nacked him, followed by further bewilderment that Roby judged it a fair "tackle". The human brain reacts to certain things, I'm sure if 4 or 5 Leeds players had started ripping Chase apart Robys brain would have told him he'd seen something different and red carded Chase. Maybe Leeds need to get a bit more cute with the gamesmanship to get the right decisions in future.

So you think that Leeds players ripping in to Chase would have maybe made the referee send him off do you ? What a strange comment.

This is exactly how I saw it. Clear intent to execute a dangerous tackle.

I still stand by what I saw as an elbow charge, grainy picture of the alleged incident or not.

The picture was a bit grainy but I guess that the RFL saw enough to feel that Chase had been naughty.

Don't underestimate the power of amateur dramatics.

If the going rate for rendering a player unconscious to the point where he stops breathing, despite him not having the ball at the time, is 4 games then I suppose two for Chase is about reasonable.

Whether you think both of those should be significantly higher or not is another matter.

Never fear Mr. Bloodbath I would not undeestimate the power of amateur dramatics at all. I just hope it never gets as pathetic as footballers though.

Didn't the Catalan coach not think the tackle was that late ? The poor bugger was completely flattened but happily he's seemingly OK now but I bet that was so scary for all on the pitch and in the stands too. The Catalan player should have got 8 matches for that so-called tackle.

I'm struggling in all this debate to understand in what sense our pack was outmuscled & bullied by the Cas pack.
What cost us the game was the fact that we dropped the ball 21 times.
Add that to the fact that we lost 2 forwards to injury relatively early in the game, allied to the loss of our fullback due to an incident that should have resulted in us having a one man advantage at the critical stage of the match & you have the reasons why we lost.
They won it in the last minute due to our tiredness brought on by dreadful ball control & they only won by 2 points.
Hardly a case of being bullied & outmuscled.
I was there & I know what I saw.
2 sides playing hard for 80 minutes in dreadful conditions, which they had the benefit of in the crucial second half.

If it had been the other way round you'd certainly not mind would you ? It's only the second game of the season and let's be honest....you'll finish above us in the table anyway.

I'd have gladly taken the 2 points.
FWIW I enjoyed the game & I can live with the result.
The Chase incident should have been handled differently but had we held on to the ball better in that last 5 minutes we could & should still have won.

It was a hard fought match and we ended up losing, albeit narrowly, I am remembering last seasons Wigan thumping us at HQ also us coming unstuck at saints. Those results were harder to take than the cas game.

You're not really that naive to think that referees don't react in relation to other peoples reactions (i.e the crowd and the players) at times are you ? There's only Tim Roby knows what Tim Roby saw, but had a melee involving irate Leeds players and Rangi Chase ensued around an unconscious Zak Hardaker I'm sure he would have red carded Chase. In my opinion Roby played it safe because the Leeds players acted as if nothing untoward had happened. Contrast that to a more "assertive" reaction from our players following Luke O' Donnells ultimately innocent challenge that KO'd Kirke, yet resulted in a red card, and you'll see where I'm coming from.

Fair enough I suppose. Bigger fish to fry etc.

The thing is he DID see it because he ruled a knock on. He saw it and saw nothing wrong with it. I doubt he is a decent ref from what I have seen of him.

Of course, as TVOC says, I do not know definitively, but it's hardly a stretch that a relatively young inexperienced referee might have been influenced by a reaction.

As it was the Leeds players lack of indignation at the foul probably merely reinforced Roby's view that he'd got the call right, which he clearly hadn't.

Well Kevin Brown tried not so long ago to 'play dead' and Mr Bailey grabbed him up by the scruff of the neck and dealt him a couple of blows. Justice on the run!