Yet again someone who does not know the rules!

[urlhttp://www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/official_laws/16_match_officials[/url

The Touch Judge has no jurisdiction to proactively police forward passes - it's in the referee's discretion to ask the touchie to help, but ultimately it is ONLY the referee who can make the call.

:1ie8y2ex

I can't see which rule you are referring to in that link, that states that the touch judge is not allowed to tell the referee there was a forward pass.

The most relevant to me is the Referee shall look at both Touch Judges before awarding a try."

As I read it, from the paragraph "Accept Touch Judge Decision 10" - it seems quite clear on defining the Touch Judge's duties
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Accept Touch Judge decision 10. The Referee shall accept the decision of an official Touch Judge relating to touch and touch in-goal play and to kicks at goal.

Touch Judge 11. Each Touch Judge shall remain in touch, one on each
side of, and near to, the playing field except:–

(a) when judging kicks at goal (see Section 6) and

(b) when reporting a player’s misconduct which has escaped the notice of the Referee.

Flag 12. Each Touch Judge must carry an approved flag.

Indicating Touch 13. A Touch Judge shall indicate when and where the ball goes into touch by raising his flag and standing opposite the point of entry into touch except in the case of ‘ball back’ (see Section 9 para. 4) when the Touch Judge must indicate that no ground has been gained by waving his flag above his head accentuating the movement in the direction of the kicker’s goal-line.

Indicating Touch in-Goal 14. If the ball enters touch in-goal the Touch Judge shall wave the flag across the body and below the waist. With the other hand he/she points to either the goal line or twenty metre line depending on where play should be restarted. Do not point to the player who made the ball dead.

Judge kicks at goal 15. Touch Judges shall assist the Referee in judging kicks at goal. (See Section 6 para.10).

Indicating 10 metres 16. When a free kick is being taken, both Touch Judges shall take up a position near the touch line ten metres beyond the mark to act as markers for the
team which is required to retire.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Nowhere does it say that the Touch Judge should indicate forward passes?

Referee – Sole judge 5. Only the Referee, or if available, the video referee, may award a try, but the Referee may take into consideration advice given by the Touch Judges before arriving at his decision.

But nowhere does it say that the Touch Judge is not allowed to pro-actively indicate a forward pass, which seemed to be your original point.

To be fair, the one on Saturday was so far forward a capable referee shouldn't have needed any assistance from the touch judge. He had enough assistance from Adam Swift anyway.

The point I'm making is that it is expicitly stated what the touch judge SHALL do and that doesn't include indicating forward passes. Now I completely agree that a good referee will use his touch judges to assist, but there is no scope for a touchie to wave his flag after seeing a forward pass.

As reffy pointed out, the ref "MAY" take into account advice from the touch judge not "MUST"

All in all the powers of the touch judge are very limited and having listened over the years to spectators
yelling for them to do something (usually shouting "linesman" of course) it seems that a large percentage of fans do not know the rules regarding touch judges

The rest of the wording of the rule stated by reffy:

[iHe shall signal that a try has been scored by pointing to where the try has been awarded but should only do so after looking at the two Touch Judges to ensure they are not reporting a prior incident.[/i

Did James Childs look at his touch judges to ensure they were not reporting a breach of the rules before awarding the try? If he did (which he has to do), at that point the touch judge is obliged, under the rules, to report the prior incident i.e. the forward pass.

If the touch judge either failed to see, or chose not to report the prior incident (the forward pass), then it is entirely his fault, not the referee.

Clearly the referee should have spotted the incident themselves on this occurrence.

I think the point we are missing here is that the officials are all "wired up" and therefore can communicate with each other. The touch judge doesn't need to wave his flag to let the ref know of things like offsides or forward passes, he can just have a word in his ear. In the instance of the Adam Swift try it would appear that both touch judge and ref failed to make the correct call or that the ref chose to ignore the touch judges call , IF he made it.

No, I think the point we are missing here is that Saints lost, even with some dodgy decisions going their way, and Cunningham doesn't like it.

I won't disagree with that.

Did team not play to the rules and got beaten.

I suggest that if players played to the rules, and actually understood them , then the penalty count would be minimal.

However this is professional sport and if you think you can get away with it then you will try. If caught then accept it and don't behave like a spoiled brat.

It's always the players that break the rule, can't the whingers see this?

Are you a ref yourself? Have you read the article? It's reflects very poorly on the match officials and the RFL. Cunningham alleges Sharp acknowledges that the decisions he's complaining about are incorrect, but cannot make the officials accountable as he only has FIVE full time officials. He's accepting there is a problem but stating he doesn't have the resources to do anything about it.

The very nature of competitive sport means that players will always seek to gain an advantage and infringe on the rules of the game. No one in the game would mind being penalised when they break the rules, Cunningham is fine with that. What he's not okay with is other teams doing exactly the same and not being penalised.

The officiating in SL is an absolute mess.

Think it's. Cunningham and Sts who an absolute mess at the moment. First he blames his players and now the refs. Perfect officiating is unacheivable, so you coach players not to give the ref any excuses. Unfortunately, Sts gave Child's loads of reasons to penalise them.

So did Catalans though, and they weren't treated the same. Read the article, Sharp agrees with Cunningham, just claims he cannot do anything about it.

He talks some sense, but directing it all at Les Cats diminishes the argument somewhat - it looks again like sour grapes.

Either way, I expect that Cunningham's cosy chats with 'Sharpy' will come to an abrupt end, given that he's quoted him saying some fairly damning things about the RFL's administration of match officials.

If the consensus is that all decisions have to be given by the ref with minimal advice from touch judges ,in goal etc then why have so many. May as well do away with a couple of them and have an extra ref in there . Only issue would be if one ref saw it one way and the other ref disagreed ,then we have scissors , paper , stone to resolve. Iamagine that on the big screen

As one of the major officiators it would seem incrongruent for touch judges whom are frequntly in line with play not to signal to the referee for forward passes, I mean they don't really bother with offsides at the scrum or much else for that matter. To ensure consistancy/better calls why wouldn't you use them for any/all infringements and decisions?

The last time a touch judge interacted with a ref via mic was to ask if he could go for a wee wee.

Don't believe even for a second that Sharp "agrees with Cunningham" on most of what he whinges.

Starting with the "forward pass", when Sky showed it from all angles, especially the view from the posts, it was not by any means clear cut. The linesman was right in line with it and regardless of his right to have an input in general play, here a try was scored so the ref is obliged to check with each touch judge. The touchie clearly didn't have a problem with the pass and he was in line whereas no camera was.

All this "we got penalized but they did EXACTLY THE SAME yet weren't penalised" is just childish guff. No two incidents are exactly the same. As for being offside, there could be a hundred penalties a game for that, but (rightly) the refs do not penalise most offsides because they judge that they do not materially affect the play. If the ball came the way of an offside player and he got involved in the tackle he would be penalised but if it goes the other way, he wouldn't.

"Consistency" is a frequent mantra but it is 95% of the time the team on the wrong end of the penalty count and the loser that whinges about inconsistency. People can feel a ref is inconsistent but that does not mean they are right. Why would a ref judge offside, for example, differently for one side, than he does for the other? Unless you go so far as to allege deliberate cheating, which is paranoid bat loony, I would say the ref's faculties will apply in the same way for all incidents over 80 minutes.

Of course on occasion a ref will have a mare. So will players, or any sportsman. But to suggest that, overall, there is some sort of institutional incompetence or worse is just paranoid nonsense. The refs in the Championship are noticeably less good than those in SL - but the that's to be expected, isn't it?

I would say the fact is that - the odd controversial incident inevitably apart - the refs do a very good job over 80 minutes, getting decisions right probably in excess of 99%, and watching pretty much any game as a neutral should convince any reasonable viewer of that.

I think the refs do a decent job but that they could be better. The system that they come up through and the full time ref system needs more money put into it and I don't see why part time ref's can't take SL games alongside the full time ones.
I also think ref's need longer in each "stage" of the refereeing ladder before moving on to the next.
We also need a 2 ref's system to help police the incredibly difficult area of the tackle and the play the ball.

The ref's are better than ever (though I think they accept too much dissent) but with super slow mo replays of every incident their "mistakes" are highlighted far more than ever before.

James Child admitted on "ask the ref" that he, and the touch judge, made the wrong decision for the forward pass.

I also disagree on your point about offside calls. Often the acting half back will take a quick look at the defensive line and will make their play accordingly; the players in the offside position will impact on their decision to go the "other way" and therefore not involve the offending player; however the act of being offside has directly impacted on his choice of play. As they saying goes, "if you are not interfering with play, why are you on the pitch".

It shouldn't be too difficult to take them all back 10 meters and actually penalise when [ianyone[/i is offside, you know like in the rule book. Sure, the first couple of weeks would be penalty-thons, but the players would soon learn not to be offside. In fact, when did the rule get changed that gave the referee discretion to make that judgement on whether he is interfering with play or not?

Amazingly, when you look back, we managed to have a perfectly decent sport (some might even argue better) when the offside distance was only 5 metres... The point about dummy halves is a fair one, but as long as it's the same for both sides...

"should" is not an explanation:

the rules are quite explicit on players and off-side:
"If the ball is played quickly, all players will not necessarily have time to retire the prescribed distance.
They should be penalised only if they intentionally interfere with play – either actively or passively."
and
"The Referee should usually position himself ten metres behind and to one side of the point at which the ball is played as a guide to the team not in possession. If tackling is excessively keen or play is unnecessarily rough, the referee may forsake the ten metres position in order to be nearer the players involved in the tackle."

You quote an old saying, may I remind you of another one (even older)
"Speccies know nowt about the game." It has been said to me on more than one occasion (and last time from a person born in St Helens, now sadly deceased and missed).

That's not my point though, I said that it wasn't clear cut.


In such a blatant case a penalty would be given though; as you say it has clearly interfered with play


Yeah, yeah, yeah we have had this point argued to the death a thousand times before. Look, it just doesn't work. No ref can properly and exactly police 13 players to all be behind an imaginary line, at exactly the moment a ball is played (if it ever is played), and your point was even conclusively disproved some years back when a temporary ruling came in that on the goal line, players had to have both feet behind the line. It never happened, it was impossible to police, your "soon learn" just didn't occur and it was very quickly and quietly relegated to the dustbin of non-starters.


Changed? the rule hasn't changed. It's either you haven't read it or don't understand it. You think that if a player is offside, then it is a penalty, but it isn't! It is only if the offside player attempts to take part in the game or influence play that a penalty results. If he does neither then YES he IS offside and NO he is NOT penalised.

The second part of your question is nonsensical. The referee does not have a "discretion" to make a judgment - he MUST make a judgment! If a player is offside the ref MUST decide whether he is attempting to take part in the game or to influence play.

Maybe you're confused with the discretion to stop play or play an advantage? Even if the ref decides the offside player IS attempting to influence play, he may still let play go on, e.g. to see if the other team scores a try etc., and if it doesn't, then award the offside penalty, if they get no advantage.

I can't say I've noticed any great difference in the quality of refereeing. It is what it is.

I do think the rules could do with tweaking here and there, tho. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with supposedly "charged down" kicks in which the player isn't even looking at the ball and has no idea where it is - and yet he ends up conceding a fresh set of six thirty yards down the pitch after it glanced off his backside.

Six more tackles in the opponent's half strikes me as an overly generous reward - especially if the attacking side botches the play on fifth and ends up making a rushed clearance.

My other bugbear are players moving yards forward of where they should be playing the ball. Time and time again I'm seeing players getting away with this. It's particularly galling when the defensive side gets pinged for being offside on the next play. They've lined up as they should and yet because the opponent has crabbed upfield they immediately appear to be all offside.