You guys are starting to wake up to the fact that it's what your ground has become known for.
From the first minute,the cry goes up.
FORWARD PASS
It's become a reason not to go to the game.
Refs won't take any notice,now they know it's so constant.
I didn't go last night,but the last time I was there,it was constant,like toothache .
There may have been forward passes last night,and last season,but there's nothing to suggest the ref makes the number of mistakes that you guys claim,or that it's just against your team.
In reality,I couldn't really care less but you do need to know that it's what you've become known for .

Shucks - we didn't know that! Wow, no really, WOW, WE thought it was everywhere else........

That's the attitude !

There was me thinking Odsal was known for a crap view and no roof!

But that would require some match officials that had 2 working eyes and a pair of gonads.

We're really not.

It really doesn't. This is not to say it doesn't happen, but in general, there are several places I go to where you are more likely to hear forward shouts, I'd say Wakey is probably the worst. Leeds are on the refs back a lot too. But in reality it is pretty normal fan behaviour. Especially by home teams getting beat.


If for whatever reason you don't go to a game, so what? Free country and all that. Personally it sounds like a very thin veneer over other proper reasons but hey.


I think actually it is very well documented, and anyway just common sense, that refs, being human, are susceptible to pressure. They of course try to resist it but whilst pressurising the officials in our game is not within a million miles of - say - European Champions League soccer, where it is an actual art that people are trained in, and where crowds pathologically disagree with the most blatantly correct decisions if against their team, it happens in all sports simply because there is a point to it, to put pressure on an official, and we all know that, to varying extents, it is bound to have an effect.


You don't say!



Interesting. So the crowd shouted "FORWARD" non-stop for 80 minutes of play. Even the 40 or so minutes when we had the ball. Actually, I don't believe you and suggest you are talking patent bollox.


Translation: "My opinion is different from your opinion", and actually nobody said it's "just against our team".





So you both "couldn't care less" - AND at the same time care so much that it actually stops you from going to a game where the team you support is playing!

Neat dissection.
You really are oblivious to the main point but,as you say,you can't do anything about the roof either

It is pretty ironic, coming as it does from fans of the team that benefitted so greatly from the gridiron throws of the Paul brothers aka 'flat passes'.

FWIW I think Widnes fans are even worse, and they top it off with their childish 'get into 'em' chants

I have seen games at Odsal where the shouts of forward was very few, which was probably because the ref. had spotted them early on in the game.
Plus my friend if you don't go to games because of this..how do you know it actually happens? Also if it happens with your team, perhaps that says more about the the actual number of these types of passes from your players?

Strange reasoning for not being in attendance??

It wasn't the reason I didn't go on Friday but my point was that it's becoming a distraction, and a reason not to go.
Your mates on this forum accept that you're known for it.
The last 3 times I went to a match at Odsal it was madness,every pass was called forward,from the terrace opposite the main stand.
I agree it's not the biggest deal in the world,but please don't be in denial.
That's the way it is at Odsal.

It tends to be more from teams who are losing, obviously. Wakey being the proud exception who have it on a tape loop so it is shouted every 10 seconds whether the ball is in play or not. It tends to amuse me more than anything, especially when I am watching Wakey, but even more when one of the big teams is being beaten by one of their perceived inferiors, usually allied with constant booing & cries of 'cheat'. As regards the legitimacy of the booing, my opinion is that the ref gets over 99% of the calls correct. I cannot remember a game spoiled by numerous missed calls, I cannot remember one pass from Cas v Saints where I was remotely moved to shout 'forward'. It is a non-issue. If it was affecting my enjoyment that much I would stand/sit somewhere else or listen to my ipod.

Seething quietly about things is part of the enjoyment for me.

Over [ahem years I've been to a zillion away games where the crowd has spent half the game going ballistic at the officials and working itself into a self-righteous frenzy the more points Northern/Bulls accumulated from the perceived bent and biased officiating.

I have always found it hilarious watching grown people reverting to age seven, and it provided me with much enjoyment. Sometimes I'd join in an argument about chosen decisions, just to wind them up even more.

So I can see how this (pretty normal) phenomenon can be amusing for opposition fans, but it's hard to see how it could possibly be a reason for not going to the game. I expect the OP can't even bear to watch Emmerdale any more as they keep accusing the wrong person of the crime.

I have been watching RL for over 50 years and can remember the call 'forward' at most matches. The problem I see is that in their desire to keep the game moving the 'flat' pass has been accepted when in the good old days the pass could only travel backwards to the receiving player. It must be extremely difficult for a referee to spot all the flat passes especially near the try line.
I think the RL have gone the way of football where the referee ignores all the shirt pulling arm wrestling in the penaltyarea in the aim of keeping the game flowing.
If the referees in both football and rugby league always penalised any offence each time the professional players/coaches would quickly revert to fair play.
initially there would be a slowing down of the sports but eventually the game would be much better and fairer to both teams.

I've been watching RL since around 1952, though I confess I was only, sort of four years old, so probably spent more time pulling bottles out of the old rubbish tip filling that Odsal had back then, than actually concentrating on the rugby - however, I can't remember a time when the rules specified the ball HAD to go backwards, indeed my recollection is that "in any direction except forwards" has pretty much always figured in the laws of the game.

That said, I'd agree that players DID make more of an effort to actually pass it backwards in the old days but that has been overtaken by the more modern approach of the legal 'flat pass', and obviously, the nearer you go to flat makes the possibility of it going forward much more likely.

At the risk of turning this thread into Dêja vue all over again though, no matter how slowly you you play the game [unless you stop to make the pass, the ball will always finish up in front of the passer due to the momentum of the ball and, sadly, I do feel than many[i still [/ihaven't grasped this simple matter of physics.

I thought we were known for not cutting our cloth, or being the RFLs favourites or playing at an iconic ground.

This post started the thread so it's a good way to finish

Its was great on Friday ,the cost of a transfer into the seated stand was well worth the money.Thanks for a great evening.

Am I the only one to find this hard to believe?

I disagree completely. Players will always play to the very limit of whatever laws are in place. All teams know what the rules of the game are & what the current interpretations are. There are very few naïve or deliberate transgressions that go unpunished, nowhere near enough to remotely spoil the game.

Incidentally I have seen 3 people die at RL games in my 30+ years of watching, at least 2 of those were directly from incidents where sections of the crowd were worked up into a frenzy. People need to get some perspective.

:2m06ewl0
To be honest, I disagree completely.

Players are professionals. They break, or go to the limits of, whatever the rules [or interpretations are, simply because they perceive there is an advantage to be gained from doing so. I have to say you have a different opinion of what constitutes 'very few' than I do as, in general, I see several [I've probably got a different interpretation of the word 'several' than you

The thing that I really don't understand about the PTB is why we play to a different procedure than is specified in the laws. Which state that the ball shall be placed on the ground*

The problem only exists because officials ignore the flagrant breach ogf this simple and basic rule, and instead, allow the ball to be rolled backwards. The rules do not permit this, plain and simple. Propelling the ball behind you is not "placing" it.

We then are told that the refs have been told to interpret the PTB rule in a way that as long as the player has made "a genuine effort" to play the ball with the foot, let it go. And it is this that leads to the ridiculous spectacle of a player lifting a boot as he whangs the ball back to his teammate, making a laughable cursory waft at the ball or even no effort at al, yet play goes on, and his team gets the major advantage.

What should happen is, ball placed on ground as per rule. If the player then made his "genuine attempt", the ball wouldn't move.

The immediate and miraculous effect would be that suddenly all players would manage to play the ball with their foot.



* the rule actually says "place or drop" but the refs ignore the second part and if you drop the ball to the ground they automatically call it a knock-on

I have made my point previously but agree that as the RFL continue to change the rules each season in an effort to speed up the game (especially for Sky viewers), referees allowing the ridiculous throwing the ball to the receiver in the play the ball! Forward passes which result in tries when our friends on SKY often comment "that pass looked a little forward", the game is moving closer towards American Football.

You are missing my point. The PTB & flat passes are not infringements of the current interpretations of the rules. There are virtually no forward passes that players get away with, irrespective of the screams from the Sky commentary box. 1 or 2 in a game generally. I see no real need to change the PTB, it wasn’t a great effort just needed a bit of technique. But they did &, personally I couldn’t give a monkeys as someone at least makes the effort to lift his leg. For the enjoyment of the game & giving an advantage it is almost irrelevant.
If the pass rule was reverted to having to go back we would end up exactly where we are now. With cries that it was 2 yards flat not backwards. Players will be coached to pass as near to flat as possible. Again it is hardly an issue that spoils a game IMO. There are far more errors from players that contribute to defeat in every game than any marginal decisions from officials.

Not sure if anyone’s watched much NRL this season but they have cleaned up their PTB and speeded up the game without it turning into a succession of dummy half scoots. It’s do-able.

The time taken wrestling and messing about is much lower and the game is better as a result. The PTB over here has become too important in my opinion and the tricks employed by players to gain an advantage there are detracting from the more aesthetically pleasing parts of the game.

They have some rules that we’ll definitely see over hear soon like penalising the third man in the tackle if he tackles at the knees or below, compulsory substituting concussed players and 7 tackles from 20m taps when the opposition kicked the ball dead.