The St Helens knock on appeared a bad miss from the officials, although anyone suggesting the video referee should intervene without being asked to do so is on dodgy ground.

The forward pass for St Helens first try was contentious but not as contentious for me as the illegal play the ball by Wheeler. He clearly played it forward then stepped over it, I've seen plenty of those rightly brought back by the officials.

In support of Childs I thought he had a very good game overall. Even though I don't like to see referees ping teams while in possession (that's too Union for my tastes) and Child is the worst offender in my book (although Ganson was out to retake the crown on Friday) the one where he penalised McCarthy-Scarsbrook was unavoidable. He specifically warned him at every play the ball up to that point and issued a final warning (all on the run) and the dumb **** took no notice of the officials instruction whatsoever. He did after that though.

Now, I saw it the other way around a little, because while you are correct about Wheeler stepping over the ball he did touch it with his foot (just) and I am not sure it went forward or back. But I agree that more often than not he would have been pinged.

Agree on McCarthy-Scarsbrook though, no choice.

The other interesting thing I noticed, and brings us back to our chat about the RFL actually making public the video ref guidance notes, was that Child went straight to the video for the Saints foot in touch no-try. The touch judge put his flag up and stood his ground, yet Child said, let the video ref have another look. Now, I don't have a problem with this, the video ref is there and it was a reasonably close call so why not? However, if the video ref had not been there Child would have had no choice but to disallow the try, as the rules are clear and the ref has to go with his touch judges decision. The touch judge was spot on in his call and he was in touch.

So this is one area where we have a conflict between the rules and the popular understanding of the video ref's role. If we had access to some strict guidance notes and they said something like (for this instance), 'when a video ref is present, unless the both the ref and touch judge are certain (beyond doubt) that a player was in touch during a try scoring move, they should always refer the decision to the video ref to judge on'. This also means that if either of them are uncertain they have to go to the video; it is of course usually the case that ref is uncertain with the touch judge certain, than the other-way around, as it was in this case. Strictly speaking, if you look at the actual rules, Child should just believe his touch judge and rule 'in-touch'.

All fair points, had he not dished out three warnings to Bryn Hargreaves for exactly the same offence without penalising him and missed the blatant Wheeler one for the try. If you're going to have an "offence du jour" at least be consistent with it over 80 minutes. Seemed to be out to ping LMS from the off and just let everyone else slide.

He got a lot of big calls wrong on Saturday, all of them in one direction unfortunately.

rhinogonemad is CraigLoiner

I weren't taking notes for this one, just enjoying a game I were expecting to fast forward through.

I was getting a little frustrated at how many warnings he was prepared to issue without pulling the trigger early doors. That said I think the difference between McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Hargreaves was that Childs clearly issued a final warning (albeit on the run) to the former and penalised on the next occurrence, I didn't hear the equivalent warning given to the St Helens player although I may have missed it. I wish we had a referee's mike option.

I'd have still liked to see the Wheeler play the ball go to the video referee though, that would have been an interesting call, especially as he'd not long since done McCarthy-Scarsbrook IIRC.

I'm still struggling with when playing the ball forwards with your foot having placed it on the ground correctly became a knock-on rather than a penalty, as seems to be the case these days.

The rules are not really clear about a play the ball and what the consequences are for incorrect playing of the ball. You can also, according to the rules, still drop (or place) the ball on the floor and then play it back with your foot, but now if a player did that I am sure the ref would rule a knock on!

As I understand it, a play the ball has four elements. Lifting the ball clear of the ground, regaining your feet, placing the ball on the ground and then playing it backwards with your foot. To the letter of the law, if one of these elements is done incorrectly then a penalty should be awarded.

I think common sense comes into play though from a ref's p.o.v and they award a scrum depending on what the infringement is. In my opinion, if an accidental knock on occurs, a scrum should be awarded. Where the ball in deliberately played incorrectly in order to try and gain an advantage, a penalty should be awarded.

This happened pretty much in front of me. Senior was clearly held up and was on his back with the ball on his chest. The Hull defenders seemed to assume the touch judge had seen this and released him and Senior reached out and put the ball down just as Bentham eventually arrived on the secene.

Clever play by Senior, naive defending by Hull, poor work by the officials.

As the Hull knock on resulting in 6 more tackles and your second to last try, as mentioned on page one and two, were around the same place and therefore right in front of you, do you have any comment on that?

Yes, that is my understanding, although the lifting of the ball and regaining your feet don't have to be in that order and in fact the rule states "The tackled player shall without delay regain his feet where he was tackled, lift the ball clear of the ground, face his opponent’s goal line and drop or place the ball on the ground in front of his foremost foot.", as long as they get to their feet and lift the ball clear it does not matter how. It does still however say, 'drop or place the ball on the ground in front of his foremost foot'!

And I agree with you and how ref's are looking at it, it makes sense, but the rules don't state what strictly should be done if the above is not performed correctly.

Ah yes the early seventies. Where did they go.

It was the correct decision (slightly), a leeds hand tipped the ball into a hull players grasp and the hull player therefore knocked on. It should of been a scrum for hull for the first knock on from the leeds hand but he waved 6 to go.

Without wishing to be like Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger I honestly didn't see it.

Apart from Senior's first try Ryan Hall's try was also a double movement. He was tackled well short and both his elbows were on the ground.

I think we are all agreed that the officials were poor and both sides were the victims of bad decisions. I'm not going to claim "we wuz robbed" nor can you say that Bentham kept us in it. You were undoubtedly the better team and deserved to win. That 20 minute spell in the second half when you ripped through our defence and offloaded at will was the best attacking rugby I've seen all season. However I can't help thinking that the match may have been closer had you not been gifted a 12 point start by the officials.

rhinogonemad He most definately is not craigloiner !!! errch its me??

I have seen this several times. We might as well not have linesman

Not sure why that would matter as Senior appeared to ground the ball before getting rolled over on to his back anyway.

Are you sure he did not drop to the ground before the tackle and then lifted his arm again before the tackle came in? I am going to look at this again later on Sky, but you could of course be correct.

Having seen it again once, at full speed, on the highlights it looked to me like he wasn't held when he hit the deck and was well within his rights to promote the ball.

That is what it looked like to me on the day as well. Will watch later.

Here's my twopennorth for what it's worth.
Surely with todays technology a 'smart' chip could be inserted into every ball that emits a gps signal and can be tracked to determine exactly if a ball is passed forward or not.
It's the future y'know.

This would only work if the smart chip was smart enough to understand Stevo's momentum rule.

IIRC this has already been suggested and possibly even trialled. The problem arises though as a pass is deemed to be forward when it travels in a forward direction in relation to the player, not in relation to the ground. This would mean every player being having a chip on them.

Also, how do you allow for wind for instance? A ball may be passed backwards and end up moving forwards due to the wind. This would not be a forward pass as it was originally thrown in a backwards direction but would it get picked up by the technology?

What he just said.

It may take another twenty years for the message to get through to certain individuals though. If the game ever changes the forward pass law to just being in relation to the ground (release point to receive point) then we better find a quicker restart option than the scrum.

After seeing both tries again Hall wasn’t tackled as I’d originally thought and therefore couldn’t have been double movement.

I still maintain that Senior was held up for his first try though. Seen it a couple of times now and can’t stop where he grounds the ball.