And the petty debate continues.......

It's all moot.

If Orr and Griff had done their job properly in downing Hall.......

This.

The flight of the ball was altered but I agree entirely the decision rests on whether the ball goes forward from Hardaker's touch or not.

I think it does and for the following reason, Hardaker is moving towards the Castleford try-line and without his touch is light (I don't think it was as the ball deflects markedly) or he can impart a backward motion on the ball (which I don't believe he did) it pretty much follows that the ball has to be effected in the same direction as Hardaker is moving.

An awful lot of debate here about the knock-on. In times of doubt, I often ask myself "if that had been given against Leeds, how would I have felt?"

In this case, I'd have felt we'd been hard done by. There was enough doubt for the video ref, but I thought it was a knock-on at first viewing, and no number of replays have done anything to change my mind.

As others have alluded to, there should still be credit to the effort of Ryan Hall, and derision to the feeble tackles of the Cas players. I think, if memory serves, Danny Orr was swatted aside with alarming ease by both Hall and Watkins on their way to the tryline.

I thought Hood grounded the ball on the line. Again, Cas' coaches will probably want to turn their attention to the lazy defending rather than the decision.

I give credit to Hall and critisize the defensive effort of Orr and Griffin but I'd also temper both those comments with the possibility that having seen at close quarters what presumably appeared to them to be a bog standard knock on their intensity/concentration may have relaxed.

Fair play to Hall for not being distracted and playing to the whistle, a lot of players would have hesitated or lost focus at that moment.

If they did so, they swap one poor piece of technique with an error (not playing to the whistle) that professional players should not be guilty of. I'll grant you it does happen, but since I was being shouted at by coaches not to stop without a whistle when I was 7, I'm not sure I can excuse it.

You can't excuse not playing to the whistle but there doesn't even have to be a whistle or a garbled referee call to cause a momentary loss of focus. How often does a ball simply going to ground appear to have a disrupting effect on a defence.

Well then, that's a lesson they can learn from.

They both seemed to track the ball throughout the move, so they should have defused the situation. They were there to make the tackle, they just failed to execute.

I heard the ref shout "that's OK" from the telly. There was no loss of focus. Just tackling and great finishing by the WBW.

What you heard came via the ref's microphone. Not all calls from the referee out on the pitch are heard (or so player's claim) and they will also be hearing other calls from other player's and spectators alike.

I'm not saying whether they did or didn't hear the ref's call just saying it's common to see player's ease off in these type of situations.

Are you sure? I had the windows open.

Any particular reason?

If anyone wants to see a piece of Ryan Hall skill (outside the obvious) they could do worse than watch his receipt of a hopeless Rob Burrow pass from the base of the scrum around the 71st minute at Cas.

Dipping, out in front and a good couple of feet off target .... a real horror ball that no-one really had a right to reel in. Hall sticks a right mitt out and says come to daddy and there isn't even a murmour from the commentary team.

If Boots N All were a decent magazine programme (which it isn't) these are the things it would focus on, rather than opening with ten mins of Clarke's inane stats. I switched off after that last night, having given the programme a go for the first time in a long while.

Hall has it all, IMO. Size, pace, great hands and a top drawer finish. IMO, the WBW tag is justified.

You sound quite hot under the size 18 collar, just typing that.

Ryan Hall. He is big and he is clever.

In 20 years he will be as revered as Alan Smith. Although I doubt he'll still be out on the wing at 40.

I've seen so many tries scored against Leeds from forward passes and crucial ones where the ball was clearly dropped (Des Drummond's fumble in the JP semi in 84 and of course in the same year the famous David Laws "grounding"icon_wink.gif that I don't care if Leeds score a few from marginal or forward passes.
I saw a game (when admittedly we were shocking) where Warrington put 60 on us (and I believe only kicked 2 goals all night). The first 5 tries were from passes that wouldn't have looked out of place at this years Superbowl. What goes around comes around, swings and roundabouts, some you win....etc....etc....etc...

17.5, but good god yes, he's a specimen.

I'm only jealous, I don't have much of a neck.



He is a piece of meat alright.

Just for you G, 2 'specimens' side by side.

Toilet time?

Surely that's not his milkshake?!

It'll be a "power" shake BB

Freshly wrought.



(anyway, big set of girly-boys with their straws)

Nope. Just did it here at my desk. Didn't get caught either.