Lol. Moore did his best to try and help Catalan win. It was a shocking refs display

Works both ways on calls, we should have had a 8pt try and they never checked if McMeeken was onside from the kick. from Saints point of view score should have been 14-4 in our favour. Last 5 mins of the game Saints were holding them out and Catalans were panicking and were as effective as Puff the Magic Dragon.

You won't get a rise out of him here Tabby he's not a member of the forum....

Just accept that you scraped over the line.
For the neutral, it was a decent watch, the start of the game was absolutely brutal but, Saints were a tad lucky to win.

What I dislike about SL coverage is the commentators or pundits never criticise referees. Bad calls are just accepted rather than scrutinised and called what they are "terrible calls".

Watch the NRL and they stick the boot into refs all the time when they get it wrong.

There's a balance and there's no need to stick the boot in as such. But, and I know this is perhaps a minority view, the coverage lost a lot when they got rid of Stuart Cummings. There are some calls which are marginal and our current batch of commentators simply don't have the technical knowledge required to properly analyse them.

Apparently Guasch has thrown his toys out of the pram, he recons that if Catalans reach a final & they have English referee's he will pull his team out of the competition!

The problem with Cummings was he was just a cheerleader for officials. He would always try and justify why an official made a decision even if it was clearly wrong.

Glad he said what he said. Shame the game doesn't have the money to get Australian officials. There must be enough who can't get a gig in the NRL yet but could do with experience of officiating professional rugby league and have a start in super league.

The coote incident was unforgivable and should not have been missed.

The officials should have to explain how that was allowed to happen and be told its not good enough.

Wonder if all the people crying about McManus’ program notes after the 19 CC final being disgraceful will be up in arms over Gausch accusing the referees of being biased in a newspaper

Bring Back Thierry Alibert.

At least the difference this time is that the refereeing may actually have affected the result. In 2019 St Helens were well beaten and a decision in the third minute should have no impact on a truly champion team winning a game.

Moreover McManus had a week to calm down and still came out with that toe-curlingly embarassing programme column. If Gausch is still ranting a week later maybe it starts to be comparable.

The difference is McManus moaned about it and it was left in the past, whilst Gausch won't be playing his club in a Grand Final unless its conditional and effecting the future.

Gausch is very selective didn;t say too much at the "Battle of Brutus" when playing Warrington and players families were under threat.

Like I said, stuff said in the heat of emotion after the game is different. If he's still banging on about it, McManus style, a week later then we have an issue.

As for "left in the past", has Robert Hicks been seen at St Helens since that time? It remains the most unbelievable over-reaction I've ever seen from a club, its management and its victim-mentality fans to what was a decisive defeat.

Another difference is McManus did his complaining in an in-house club made program that is aimed at his own fans. Gausch has done his whinging in a regional newspaper with a much wider reach.

and the difference is that McManus had some editorial control of what would get published in a programme, especially as it reflects the entire club - whereas with a newspaper interview editorial control lies elsewhere and it's only Gausch's viewpoint.

Yes, there was no reporting of McManus's unhinged ranting anywhere outside St Helens

I'm fine with what he has said, as long as he stands by it . In a way I hope Catalan make the final next year to see what happens.

Well...

Where to start with that.

Of course I think Catalans should have won.

If the red card and penalty try had been given, rightly or wrongly I think that would have been enough to see us over the line.

We can talk about the punch that didnt get picked up on, the kick to touch and the incorrect play the ball as well.

I am sure for every Catalans fan on here mentioning that there will be 10 Saints fans giving their own side of the game with examples of their own (that I ignored!!)

These things happen and the Saints got the win.

Fair play to them and congratulations.

(gritted teeth emoji needed)

As for Bernard, he often uses the screen of the officials so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

I also think we will need to rebuild a bit now with Maloney going and Sam T being a year older. If that is a French spine to the side it might be a while before our next final, if we ever make it again at all.

I think we have had Hicks 3 times, had to be on his best behaviour in the UK, however he reffed our game at Catalan he was atrocious and Saints lost by a controversial decision by allowing tackled McMeeken to pass the ball off the floor and earlier Maloney did a dying swan act to earn a 2 pt penalty. We lost by 4 points, not a squeak from McManus but offered him coffee + biscuits in the following home fixture game.

Of course it did, but it wasn’t McManus that did that, it was the other journos chasing controversy. McManus was just whinging in his own program to a bunch of people that already agreed with him.

I’m not defending McManus either, as much as I felt aggrieved by Hicks in that game, the chairman coming out and doing that was embarrassing and he was rightly punished.

The point here is that Gausch hasn’t had anywhere near the same reaction, despite the fact he’s gone out of house and said all this in a newspaper, in a country in which we are currently trying to make great strides in expanding into. The precedent has been set and Gausch is due a more severe punishment than was handed to McManus, because his transgression was worse and not only that, he rounded it off with a threat that threatens the integrity of the entire super league.

The fact that loads of fans are backing Gausch’s comments are hilarious, but not surprising considering the small mindedness of RL fans in general. Saints are successful therefore they are bad and everything they do is bad! They only win because the refs! Poor catalan/castleford/Salford delete as appropriate

I thought the game was very good and the ref was no worse or better then any other ref maybe we should try like they are in football and have all women in charge ie ref lins women and video refs

Fair points, just to endorse that the McManus spat was really an internal affair (match program) that eventually transgressed into breaking the operational rules and a £3000 fine.

Gausch was very much a spat externally sent across a social media platform(s) with a conditional demand for any future participitation. I'm pretty sure this also breaks operational rules, will the RFL subject a similar £3000 fine or will the RFL back off and just give him a slapped wrist.

Amazing that some people can twist themselves into believing that McManus actually sitting down and writing something for public consumption, presumably several days after the event, is considered less bad than Gausch saying a few heated things directly after the event.

It also needs remembering that McManus followed up his programme notes with a press release so it's by no case an internal thing that he couldn't imagine would be picked up on outside St Helens.

Thats incorrect, as The Reaper had just explained the Journo's got it spinned out to get more mileage of controversy. McManus followed up with a press release to counter the journo's spin, the press release was approved by the RFL Compliance Team and also contained an ending apology to the RFL, I,m not sure if he apologised to Hicks himself.

If I can get the RFL approved club statement I will post it up.