From where I was sitting in the stadium (with my green and gold bifocals on admittedly) I believe there was some doubt that the Kiwi would have definately scored, hence my biased reason for believing 'No try'

but hey ho.

Schitt happens I guess.

Well lets see what happens tomorrow night. My tickets for the match turned up yesterday and I've got some rather nice seats in the LV (or West) Stand.

The Kiwis deserved to win the game...

However, the correct ruling should have been a penalty to New Zealand, Monaghan to the sin bin.

No sin bin and a penalty try... pretty big stuff up

My god.

There now appears to be TWO of us talking sense on RLFans

Where will it all end

It won't. It'll just go on forever.

Ganson is a neutral ref, anyway for this match. What's more preposterous is Eng v Aus next week. As I understand it the fault lies with the ARL who won't accept 'substandard' Kiwi or French refs. Thierry Alibert does OK in SL so I don't see why he didn't get the game.

Alibert is out of his depth in SL. He certainly shouldn't be doing Internationals.

Ganson is just as bad though.

Nah. I thought Ganson did ok last night. I think he was stamping his authority on the game to begin with as both teams know we are more lax over here with our solitary (naff) ref in the middle. He showed early on he wasn't taking any crap and things got better after a while as he let the game flow. I thought he looked a bit more like his old self and he was definitely the best ref to be in charge of that game, especially when the biff began.

Cracking game of rugby league and to think, that was just a warm up match. The final will be a belter.

Absolutely.

Ganson tried his best to screw up last nights game.

Hopefully Tim Sheens will have a word in the right places about him and advise them that Ganson would be better off just reffing SL games

He's head and shoulders above Alibert.

Doesnt this highlight why Rugby League struggles to establish itself on the world stage? Football and union are played to the same set of rules throughout the world. Until the International Board takes control of the organisation of the game as a whole we will continue to struggle to be accepted by the media.

Good post

Hope the highlighted words help you understand the reason why we will not accept any referee in games involving us

The trouble is though the choice shouldnt be yours, it should be up to the international board. Australia's attitude towards the subject of neutral refs is pathetic and is embarrassing for the game.

Fine, if you won't accept a Frenchman or a Kiwi then don't complain when you get an Englishman! Clearly, logic is in small supply with our old ex-Private Eye matey!

Well said. Geoff Carr reportedly said that French and Kiwi refs are "amateur." Apparently he doesn't know that Thierry Alibert's a full-time SL ref. Considering there's been a New Zealand team in the NRL all along, it's a good question why there are no Kiwi refs in that league.

And the simple answer is that Robert Finch, Geoff Carr and David Gallop are all a bunch of pricks who won't allow non Australians to referee in their league.

They say that French refs and Kiwi refs are rubbish, but yet they have Aussie dross like Tony Archer, Shayne Hayne, Ben Cummings, Jason Robinson, Jarred Maxwell, Matt Cecchin, Ashley Klein, Gavin Badger and Tony De La Heras refereeing in the NRL.

If the RFL have any , they will shove the ARL's incesent whinging back up the ARL's and appoint Leon Williamson as referee on Saturday.

You have just hit the nail on the head!!!!!

Well, Ganson it is for the England-Australia match.

Sheens has already had a whinge about it. Jutice has been served after the NRL dross we had to put up with in the World Cup game in Melbourne.

Hopefully Ganson will penalise the Aussies for holding down/messing etc like he did on Saturday. Mind you, he caned the Kiwis even more, and usually in games like this the "pommie" ref bends over backwards to show he's neutral (i.e giving the Aussies plenty of cheap penalities)

The Poms need all the help they can get....it will be like having 14 men on the field.

However to beat Australia they would need at least 40

I've not seen anything that confirms it, but if true, it's no suprise. Ganson is the best referee in the world by a country mile at the moment.



I wouldn't hold your breath about it. Deep down, Sheens is probably made up, and the reason is what you have said below.



Precisely. It seems that England v Australia is the only fixture in the international calender where the "neutral referee" rule goes out the window.



The difference between the two sets of referees though is as follows:

English ref: They will give the Australians everything just so they can show that they are biased towards England. See Russell Smith, Stuart Cummings as an example.

Aussie ref: They don't give a rats about bias so they will give Australia everything anyway. See Bill Harrigan, Steve Clark, Tim Mander, Tony Archer as an example.

I'm hoping Ganson doesn't get added to that list. He will make sure the game is controlled properly, and any penalties deemed worth of pinging will be pinged no matter who gives them away.

As long as the rule interpretations are made clear beforehand, and those interpretations are consistent throughout the game I don't care who the ref is.

Put the whistle away and only blow it when it's really needed

the criminals whinging about referees again, funny that it always happens when they dont win, when they do win they never complain abouts the ref, they just talk about how great they are.