During the last fracas when Manley were given their last penalty the ref. took a long time after he had stopped play to restore order and lecture a couple of players; but the clock was not stopped and at least a couple of miniutes were used up. You can check exactly how much time was used up if you watch a recording,

Would it not be fairer in situations like that to stop the clock. Those lost few minutes could have been valuable and may well have led to an interesting last few minutes after McGuire's last try.

Cheers

Ch.

IIRC they should be stopped by the ref before a lengthy intervention, not like I'm complaining about tonight merely that I beleive that is what is in the rules.

Well lets put it this way... a heap load of fights break out in front of you, what are you more concearned about? Making sure everything is sorted and you know who's involved or making a signal to the time keeper. In my youth game yesterday there was a big fight and it took me about a minute to stop my watch as I was more bothered about sorting it all out.

Surely stopping your watch can be done in less than a second.

I think he was referring more to priority in the thoughts of the ref, rather than actual time taken to do it

I thought the referee was great!

Surely the official time-keeper would be able to stop the clock on the Ref's behalf and whisper in his shell-like so that he doesn't have to worry about it??

I'm sure refs can have more than one thing in their mind at a time.

When driving you constantly have multiple things you have to observe and do.

There's no communication between the timekeepers and the referees, and the timekeepers are bound to take the instructions of the match official in controlling the clock. They only stop it when he tells them to, likewise with restarting it.

Sure they can, but just becuase it is possible to do two things or more at once, doesn't mean it will happen

I thought the thread was should it...

Exactly, the time is the last thing you are thinking about when punches are being thrown and scuffles are going on. All your concentration has to be aimed towards the ongoing inccident in front of you. If anything serious happens and you have missed it due to looking at your watch for a second or turning to the time keeper to signal time out then it wont look good on your part will it.

But a ref not doing their job by not stopping the clock doesn't look good either.

If Leeds choose to start a fight, then surely we can't complain that it took time up? The ref isn't going to think "here lads have an extra few mins to knock each other out". He will do everything to diffuse the situation. then when he is speaking to the players after, something he chooses do, then he holds the clock up.

I thought the ref, bar sending off the payer that clearly went to take out Burrow, had a good game. We were playing very well up untill Burrow was taken out.

Manly clearly saw him as the danger man.