Want to try that again?

We lost due to Smith-no question.HKR were no better than us but were put were gifted good field position by him.Not to get a penalty in the second half can only be due to a ref with a major bias against us.

Get over it you got beat by a better team on the night. For years now saints have had the rub of the green from refs and you get beat by a team you obviously all expected to walk over and its down to ref bias, ffs just give credit where credit is due

No sour grapes on here then

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You cant just blame the ref for a defeat.

We didnt do enough last night.

First 20 of the second half we were coasting & making very easy yards, we lost a bit of discipline trying to go for the killer punch instead of trying to lay some field position. A couple of repeat sets would have killed the game.

I think most of the team and crowd thought it was only a matter of time.

I thought Hull KR were very average but you have to give them credit for sticking in there and also going for the win when they had a couple of chances to tie the game before the set of six that led to the pen.

That said Smith and lets not forget his linesman in this put in a truely inept performance for this level.

I think most of us accept that HKR deserved the win. Saints were very poor with the ball in hand and must improve, esepcially when Leeds come to town in three weeks.

But as someone who went to the game, the referee was awful. He gave some really tough calls against Saints that ultimately ended up tries. We also had a try disallowed and I have no idea why. It would've been an outstanding try aswell. He just isn't good enough for SL and spoiled a good contest with some controversial calls.



I think they're fairly even overall. Watkins looks a class act, but the others are around the same level as ours. Eastmond is the best of our young contingent and looks a very good player.

Smith didn't have the best of games but then again, when a team does lose, when does a ref have a good game?

We missed Pryce, people say he goes missing, but once he's not playing, you realise how much we miss him.

Hull KR played well last night and they deserved their win. The first 4 times we had the ball we lost it 3 times and the other time we kicked from inside our own 20.

I'd rather us lose games now, rather than at the end of the season.

I agree that Hull KR deserved there win and you cannot take anything away from their team.

My issue is with Ian Smith all the games he,s reffed with us last season and this season so far. As Daniel Anderson highlighted last season he's not up to the job, his decision making and general officiating of the game is way below any of the other refs.
What annoys me most is that alright we can accept a referee having a bad game if bad decisions are evened out between the two teams.

But in Ian Smith he always seems to ref us away from our normal game, its too much of a coincidence that in our last 6 games with him our team performance is always below average and our current success rate is 1 in 3 so far.

Have to say well done to KR last night, however Ian Smith like has already been said is a T**t, so are half the posters from hull that are on here at the mo. Lets see who finishes higher eh lads?

Really?

Who have Leeds got that is so much kop? Didnt see them in either of the GF's last year.

Come on, enlighten us.

Watkins, Hall, Gibson, Smith, Allen to name but a few.

The harsh reality is that when Cunningham, Gidley and Long retire I think you'll find yourselves drifting behind Leeds.

Not that I think that's anyone's fault as such as St Helens is a small town with a relatively small catchment area where as Leeds is a city of some 700,000 people and as the coming seasons go by, club's success will depend on bring quality youngsters and the big city clubs such as Leeds, Hull FC & Hull KR have far bigger player pools to tap into and will therefore be more successful in the [ulong term[/u.

Being a Hull KR fan it makes no odds to me, just calling it as I see it and I see your squad running into problems (in terms of continuing to win silverware) in the coming seasons for the reasons I have stated above.

Smith was not [ithat[/i bad. He can only call what he sees, he doesn't make things up.

We were terrible for the most part. Smith gave a few contentious decisions to Hull KR, as happens every game. Hull KR did enough to win, and fully deserved to.

What cost us was not Smith, it was Longy runnung around like a headless chicken on the last tackle when he should have set-us up for a drop goal.


Congratulations to Hull, they fully deserved it.

On our second half performance with a LOT of tough calls against us including the disallowed try, I would say that we deserved a draw and should have had it.

WTF were we thinking in the penultimate set that we had. It was a cert drop goal from 10 yards out and we went for glory.

Bad decision not to take the draw and be content. Even the HKR fans must have thought WTF have they done in just throwing the game away.

A draw would have kept the unbeaten home run going and was the least we deserved.

It wasn't great rugby but we showed a lot of heart and the kids played very well indeed.

Disappointed as it could have still been 23 years or whatever since they beat us at home.

A referee can quite easily make things up, especially when it is not on TV. He can claim to have seen something that never happened, which Smith seemed to do a few times.

Sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it doesn't. If we'd have scored then everyone would have been saying it was a great decision, it just needed a good kick and we would have won the game. Theres no saying that the drop goal would have gone over, like i say, sometimes they go for you, other times they don't.

Which says Rovers were disciplined. End of.

10 yards out. Bang in front. Dead cert.



Bad decision.

Not a dead cert at all, there's no saying he wouldn't have sliced it, or even got under the ball. He would probably have kicked it, but it was definatly not a dead cert.

Personally, i would have gone for the 1 point myself, but it works both ways, if we would have scored and it would have been a better play on the last then everyone would have said it was a great decision, but because it didn't go right it was a bad decision.

So your actually suggesting that Smith is cheating? For what benefit?

If he made things up he wouldn't be a ref. Everybody would complain.

Face it, we got beat. The ref, doesn't make you knock on. The ref doesn't make you take stupid options. The ref doesn' t miss any tackles. The ref doesn't go for it when you should be taking one point.

A referee could cheat for several reasons, such as he dislikes a certain club, he dislikes a certain person involved with that club. It is easy for a referee to make things up, he can claim to see things that no-body else has.

It does my head in when people say things such as the referee doesn't knock on and the referee doesn't miss tackle. The fact is, if a referee constantly hammers a side with penalty's the other side will score eventually as the pressure will get to the other team and they will tire.

I agree, it must have all been Longs fault. Not Wheelers for taking it on his own, not Gardner's for dropping it earlier on when he could have scored, not Grahams for giving away the penalty at the end that lead to them kicking the penalty, not Gidley's for making two breaks and failing to look for his wing man. Just Longs because he was the only one that made an incorrect decision. All because hes better than Matty Smith.

The disallowed try was for a pass that was a mile forward - you can't expect to get away with those types of passes forever.

And as for deserving a draw; the fact is you opted to go for a drop goal with 10mins to go instead of going for the kill which shows your side lacked bottle in the face of a defence who fronted up.

Saints can play some skillful RL at times but in any game were the going gets tough (Wire aside), your team goes into it's shell resulting in weak options like dropping a goal with 10mins to go - in harsh terms this is the choice of a team full of "flat-track bullies".

The return fixture promises to be another great match but whether both teams have their respective players missing from last night or both suffer further injuries, I fully expect another hard fought Rovers victory whilst you have as poor a back 3 as Wellens, Gardner and Armstrong.

smith hasn't officiated at that many of saints' games though has he,since anderson banished him elsewhere on gameday?

What about the knock on that he let go that your team scored from.
Head high by Maurie, lucky to be on the field in my opinion.
You played poor get over it.

I think smith was as bad to both teams, and i really dont rate him at all, but the match was awesome and he didn't ruin it

So you are [ireally[/i suggesting Ian Smith is a bent ref. Nothing to do with giving what he saw?

I'm not saying every decision he made was correct.

I look forward to reading about Smith not being a ref in the next few weeks. If he is cheating then surely the club will complain? other team? the fans? and he will be remove from being a ref.



But it is true.



Where have I said that?



I figured all of those could be encompassed in the phrase "taking the wrong option".



In your opinion.

Ignore the actually arguement i have put forward, revert to the typecast.

I actually thought Longy was our best player last night, apart from not taking the drop goal near the end.