Before I get all the, you lost mate get over it, Wigan were the better team etc, etc, etc. Wigan were the better team, outplayed us for 55 of the eighty, our discipline was poor and (as it is relevant to this post) our kick defence is a real problem. They WERE the better team on the night!

I would like this to be a sensible discussion about Ref's and Video refs! I of course live in hope!



I am no longer clear, when I thought I was, about Video ref's and what they can and can't rule on and also what we should be expecting ref's to rule on in and around try scoring plays.

Couple of recent cases that are confusing me. Firstly, we have the Uncle Albert and the Wellens hand off incident in the Saints Wakey game where Uncle Albert does not ask the Video ref (was it Smith?) to look at that incident but he take it upon himself and clearly does. Of course it does not matter he gave the try, what matters is that he looked without the ref's request. We have the Atkins try at Wakefield v Leeds that appeared to show a clear knock on at the play the ball prior to the kick. However, Ganson does not ask the Video ref to look at that, so he doesn't. We also have the Ali on report incident at the same game, I have it on reasonable authority that at the sight of the reply, the Video ref did advise Ganson, without prompting, to put him on report!

So last night we have what I understand was an obstruction/interference ruling from the video ref aginst McGuire. Now, firstly Mr Bentham asks Smith to look at it this, that is clear from Sky, but I have to question why?

If we just say that Danny was not near the play and it had just been Richards and Hall going to the air for the ball. Then, as we most often see, the ref asks the video, and he rules on the knock on, that is correct. It would have been a knock on and our ball (I think

). Ok, if Bentham thinks that Danny deliberately got in Richard's way why did he not rule it as penalty and give it straight away? Because a Wigan player touched the ball down... but what if he hadn't and it went dead, would Bentham have asked the Video ref to look then at both the obstruction and how to re-start the game. I bet he might, and only might, just have asked how to re-start the game but nothing more. It was either an obstruction or it wasn't in the eyes of the ref, why in this type of situation only do the ref's ask the Video? If this had not been on Sky would Bentham have given the penalty straight away, would he have decided in the spur of the moment that it was an obstruction and therefore advantage to Wigan, even though they knocked on, and give the try.

I think when it comes to televised games are we taking the whole video rulings too far, should we be saying that the Video ref can only rule on the last offence committed and the grounding or only one offence he thinks took place and the grounding on a try scoring play ? On that particular incident Bentham asks Smith to look at the on-side off-side, did Danny get in the way, did Richards knock the ball-on and did the player ground the ball correctly??? Did Bentham have his eyes closed or does he have such a low opinion of his own ability that he can't make any decisions?

As it turns out, if you do think Danny got in the way (which is a whole other thread) then Smith was correct in his ruling with a Penalty attack. It is not the outcome, but the process that worries me.

I don't see the problem here.

The video referee should be able to rule on any infringements back to the play the ball. In effect is it a try or no try on that play.

The play the ball, the onside/offside, any interference and grounding are all potentially in the dock. I assume that the referees are trying to help by highlighting specific areas of concern, no more or no less than that. It's important that the video ref doesn't waste time and effort analysing every inch of the play for minor infringements and just sticks to the basics elements though.

i heard benthem ask the VR if mcuire had possibly fouled richards. i think he got it wrong mind but i did hear him ask

I was curious why McGuire was penalised for not challenging for the ball, yet minutes later we went down the other end, Hall challenged and won a ball in the air, was upended by someone on the ground not challenging and it was called turnover due to it being on the last.

It may seem petty to mention it, but I questioned it at the time and wondered if anyone else noticed?

I know Bentham didn't give the McGuire call, the VR did, but still, it screams inconsistency (as does penalising for stepping off the mark once, then ignoring it all night when both Phelps and Smith were doing it all game).

I also wonder if its fair to penalise a defender when their arm is trapped between the ball and the attacker as happened last night. If you rip your arm out as the defender, the ball comes free and you are penalised for ripping the ball, if you dont you get penalised for interference.....i am unsure how a defender can get free from that situation....

We were sat there wondering the same at the time!! But being there live and not in front of the tv didn't know if it was just us !!

Perhaps don't get your arm trapped in there in the first place.

How would you propose to do that, not bother clamping the ball so attackers can get easy offloads?

On the subject, one of the tries that WIgan scored via the video ref, the ball was shown to be clearly not played correctly. If the vidoe ref looks at everything in that play, they should be consistent in it, and look at key areas, or only look at what the ref asks them to.

Think you might find that it was Ganson

two things that i noticed watching.
when coley was penalised for laying on he gave the ref a gobfull. bentham called him over and gave him a bollocking.shouldn't we have got 10 metres more?

near the end a wigan player passed off the ground and the turnover was awarded. shouldn't it have been a penalty?

neither would have affected the result,just got me thinking about consistency

Not neccessarily. Referee judgement call.



Yes that should have been a penalty to the non offending team IMO. Tansey also did one V Hull KR yesterday that also went unpunished IIRC.



Which try and in what way was it clearly an incorrect play the ball?

Yeah leicester rhino that was the Sam Tomkins try. The ball wasn't played with the foot but simply rolled through the legs. And Tad I agree with you Coley should have been penalised ten yards.

to be fair i have never ever seen peacock play the ball with his foot!

Think that the main thing here with refs is consistancy. Whether we, or any other team for that matter, is heavily penalise it seems that refs are keen on one certain aspect one week then another the next. It's easy to see why players and fans alike get confused and agitated week in week out when the officials are not consistent. I know the game has progressed and got quicker and tougher but the idea of full time refs was supposed to balance this. But the game has progressed yet the full time refs have struggled to keep up with this progression and has at times made our game look.............well amatuerish from a professional sport point of view. Before i get hammered for this saying without these people we have no game and it's very tough, i totaly agree but if people at the top can not get this sorted then maybe it's there, other than the full time refs that wholesale changes need to be made.

I just get the feeling that we are starting to loose our way a little with video ref's and the consistency of decisions both across one game and games that do and do not have a video ref.

The Hall take is a great case in point. I tell you what I think, I think the reason that he looked at the McGuire incident is because Wigan touched the ball down. If that ball had run dead or he had taken it but just not managed to get over the line with the ball he would never have asked the Video to look. He would just have re-started play as appropriate. Because, later Hall did take the ball and got seemingly up-ended in similar circumstance, but did not put the ball down or get the ball away for a score he does not look. Surely that is wrong, he should look as it was in the similar circumstance, it was just the final outcome that was different?

Actually, I don't think he is wrong with the other Hall incident, I think he is completely wrong with the McGuire incident and he should never have asked the video to look for the reason stated above. The ref is being inconsistent in asking the video ref... if he then does not ask elsewhere!

We were told that the idea of the video was to confirm a ref's doubt to whether a try had been legally scored and the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking side. However, Bentham ask Smith to look at four things...I don't think this is right, because in actual fact he is asking the video ref to confirm it was not a try, not that it was... if you get me!

If we are heading down that route then the video ref has to watch the entire play right from the last play the ball to the score, and confirm a try or no try. I don't want that to happen, so in that case do we need to be more strict about the video? I would suggest that the video ref always checks the grounding, whether asked or not for obvious reasons and that he is always ref allowed to ask for off-side on-side, again for obvious reasons, but he is only allowed to then ask the video for ONE other item of doubt in his mind. I suspect most of the decisions that video ref's make fall into this 'rule' by default but the McGuire one did not!

He asked him, when I watched the Sky + the next morning, to check on-side off-side, did McGuire interfere/obstruct Richards, was the ball knocked on by Richards or Hall and if ok, was it grounded ok!

I think, wothout particular reference to Friday's game, as I haven't seen any replays, the problem is one of consistency. For me the solution to the VR problem [umight be[/u to say that the VR can look at the whole play back to the last PTB. Provided, as tvoc suggests, we don't find them being too pedantic and micro-analysing every detail of the play. Personally, if you have to go to these frame-by-frame situations, I'd rather just see a decision made on a normal slow-motion replay. But that might just be me. If a player loses the ball but still has his little finger on it when it hits the deck, I'd personally be quite happy for that not to be given. But the important thing is that the same process is applied to all cases.

The same applies to on-field rulings. I have a certain amount of sympathy with the school of thought that if you commit a technical infringement (incorrect play the ball seems a good example) you've only yourself to blame if the ref picks up on it. But it is frustrating for all concerned when you have those incidences when half the PTBs in the match have been incorrect and one side is suddenly pulled up for one after about an hour. I can understand why players and fans are frustrated by that.

For all this though, I don't share the view that standards of reffing are particularly poor. I think when you look objectively at a game (for some it may be best to choose a neutral fixture) they get the overwhelming majority of decisions right. You can't realistically eliminate human error, and I'm not sure I'd really want to in this case.

I don't think reffing standards are that poor either, or ref's have any hidden agenda's, and that most of the time they have it correct. Although I might shout and scream at a ref on the terraces when I think he gets it wrong, when I watch the game back most of the time he is correct. I just think that the whole video ref, now we have lived with it for quite a while, need to be clarified again for fans and ref's alike.

The problem with majority of the decisions any ref's make is that they range from being subjective to almost objective, depending on the type of offence. This applies very much to things like interference and obstructions, which are quite subjective. I am sure Mr Bentham would say, if asked, that he had doubts about McGuire and that is why he asked the video ref to look but was certain that the other play, where Hall took the ball, that he was happy that was no interference. Of course, otherwise I would have given a penalty!

However, the problem is that Bentham had the opportunity to get the video ref to look because the ball got grounded by a Wigan player, this is the problem I have. The choice to go to video has introduced an element of inconsistancy in that game itself that would not exist if it had not been a televised game!

Another constant ethical dilemma for matches with a video ref is what to do when a ref sees something on a big-scren replay that he didn't see in the first place. The Zidane incident in the last World Cup final in Soccerball being a good example. The rules are that the ref can't consider anything seen on the scren in incidents like that, but refs being human it's surely asking a lot to ignore an offence (possible even a violent one) that they have now seen take place. Similarly, should video refs be allowed to call the official's attention to violent conduct, in the same way that the linesman/touch judge/referee's assistant/blah can?

I don't believe that is anything new though, rather just a by product of having video refs in the first place.



The referee was possibly inconsistent between the two incidents although I'd have to review the Hall incident before commenting further. It's always been the case that the video referee will find offences the match day referee may let slide by without his involvement. Again that's the nature of the beast.



The video referee (I don't believe) is restricted by what the match referee asks him to check for and it's perfectly possible the video referee in this case would have called the tackle in the air either way.



The question should be 'Try or no try' and leave the video referee to check the play in it's entirety. A foot motioned but not touching the ball at the PTB is still OK for me if that is how the game has been conducted by the on field official.



Sorry but some of this makes no sense to me. There could be several questionable instances to check on and they shouldn't be limited in any way from doing so. Getting the decision correct is what matters here not the number of incidents asked to rule on in a single play.

That is sort of my point, I agree with everything you are saying, but it is not the above in some way which I think is our current problem. I think our current problem is that it no longer seems clear what the guidance is, and even though I thought I did I am not sure if it is being applied consistantly.

The two incidents were decided on by two different officials.

The Richards jump being decided on by the VR and the Hall jump being decided on by the on-field ref.

The VR, granted, has the benefit of multiple replays, the onfield ref can only see things once, at full speed (there are also the touch judges in theory as well but they do naff all imo).

Had the VR not been at the game I would be interested to know if Bentham would have penalised McGuire or let it go, he clearly saw the incident but was 50/50 on it. I know that is complete speculation but I would just be interested *shrug*.

Just touching back to another point I commented on earlier, Bentham penalised Phelps once for moving off the mark, but didn't ping him or Lee Smith again for it when both were doing it. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? It seems stupid to penalised once for something then ignore it all game when its clearly happening.

A matter of degrees in the referees interpretation. There were several borderline possibilities and I thought Smith was particularly fortunate the first time he did it.