ref by video is the way its going now, usually they dont maje it as obvious as today though, the ref will pretend to consult the touchjudges while the replays are watched and hes told in his ear what to do

the scrum decision shows poor officials, he didnt see it, the tj didnt see it, so he went to the video

For me the Eastmond try was very simple, from first glance on tv he looked held up, there was no need to go to the screen, however what angle did the ref see it from? If he couldnt see it clear he has every right to go to the screen

Some good points regarding the use of the VR to decide on scrums and drop outs. This is something that is creeping into the game more and more. Have i missed a change in the rules allowing the referee to consult on these type of incidents? I only thought they were allowed to be consulted for try scoring opportunties and 40-20's.

A large part of the problem has to be that the tj's appear to do less and less to help the ref. Some of the decisions passed to the vr today would not have to have been were those 3 all doing their jobs

I thought Silverwood was going to go to the video ref for what meat was on his sunday dinner tonight !

There was one occasion when I was glad he went to video because he'd called the decision totally wrong and the video clearly put him right (when a Hudds player touched the ball first but Deadwood said we had knocked on). It wasn't a significant moment as it turned out, but it could have been.

The problem is prolly not with the video ref but with the clowns we call refs on the pitch.

Brett Hodgson agrees with you on that one, although he did say that they weren't allowed to ask the third umpire. Probably still gloating about events at Headingley.

Why would David Hodgson be gloating about the working class Aussies stuffing the public schoolboys at cricket?

If you could tell, at full speed from parallel to the incident, that the Huddersfield player had played at the ball then you need to be out in Afghanistan finding Osama Bin Laden with that eyesight.

It got the merest flick off an outstretched finger, without the video there it would probably have been given as a Huddersfield head and feed. Do you want decisions made immediately or do you want them made right?

Depends on who gets the decision

Yeah, good point.

Do they have to be mutually exclusive concepts?

No, but there needs to be an acceptance that they are not always going to be the same thing either. I've no problems with fans wanting decisions made on the spot, providing they are prepared to accept that the numerous video replays we are subjected to by broadcasters will show some of them up to be wrong.

Experience would suggest however that fans have unrealistic expectations of match officials.

Is it unrealsitic to want consistent decisions within the same game???????
In games such as semi's and finals i've no problem using the video refs as many times as they want as long the decisions are clear and correct.

Define "consistent".

Well if they are penalising the ptb area in a certain game i'd expect BOTH teams to be penalised,the same with goal line defence and moving off the mark etc.
I accept they will make mistakes ive no problem with that but what is annoying is one team getting penalised when the opposition get away with exactly the same thing it's hapening far too often imo and needs eradicating.

With all due respect, that's complete one-eyed cobblers.

I've yet to see a game this season where a referee has repeatedly penalised one side for an offence and not applied the same criteria to the other. Would any of the examples you have in mind happen to involve Leeds being on the wrong end of the penalty count, by any chance?

Say what you like about the quality of refs, but making barely shrouded accusations of bias is out of order IMO.

Did you see the game yesterday????????
If so then you'll of seen the giants penalised 3/4 times for offside defending their goal line then at the other end saints were doing it ALL the time.
Now call it cobblers or whatever it happened and guess what it had nothing to do with leeds either

Persoanlly I'd like to see a balance somewhere between the two. I would accept a slightly higher risk of getting a few marginal decisions wrong if it meant not having so many long stoppages where frame-by-frame footage is scrutinised. I don't particularly want to watch a game where every decision is correct if it's at the expense of having to wait 2 or 3 minutes to award every try.

Away from the try line St Helens conceded plenty of offside penalties themselves and probably lost the penalty count overall.

I thought Silverwood had a good game apart from the Graham punch at the play the ball in the lead up St Helens first half try.

One man happy after his team got beat at the weekend should be Steve Ganson though. He now gets the final without the controversy of last year.

Not if they give it to the "best" ref on form he won't!

When has that ever formed part of Cummings criteria in appointing referees in finals?

Besides which it ought to be a straight choice between the semi final referees and I understood you to be upset with Silverwood's handling of yesterday's game.

Not upset at all i just think there were offences that should of been picked up on when they were at the other end.
I should of added the touch judges aswell TBF.

If the knock on decision was the one I think it was, a saints player had actually grounded the ball despite fairly obviously having gone into touch. Silverwood referred it to the VR, ostensibly to check whether the score should be allowed. The VR ruled out the try but confirmed that the game should be restarted with a scrum following an earlier knock on. I'm pretty sure that Silverwood knew there was no try and effectively used the VR to adjudicate on the knock on. Had there been no grounding of the ball, Silverwood wouldn't have been able to use the VR; as it was, he took advantage of a fairly unusual set of circumstances to come to the right decision.

Having said all that, I'd be 100% happy to see the VR scrapped.

Ganson's going to get it either way.

Silverwood is generally the better referee but his use of the VR yesterday was a little excessive and a direction I hope the RFL don't go down.

Given the same circumstances Ganson uses the VR just as much but he's not as obvious about it. His chats with TJ's while he get's the ruling in his earpiece are hilarious. I only wish there was an option to listen to the ref's mike instead of the commentary.