A defending player can contest for the ball in the air. He can't tackle the attacker though until he's landed.

4 pages of having a go at the match officials and their standards!

So they got things wrong. Are not "international" standard.

Start also applying that to the players as well for consistancy.

So the player tackling the player in the air was NOT trying to break the rules?

So the people stripping the ball were NOT breaking the rules.

The players forcing elbows into faces were NOT breaking the rules and yet all this is the MATCH OFFICIALS FAULT



















Get a grip people.

If the players and coaching followed the rules there would be no need for match officials.

Seeing that will NEVER happen they are needed, and if you accept that players , coaches get it wrong then accept that match officials do as well.

The NRL tried the Two referees policy for good reasons, allow refereeing to be more accurate, consistent, to minimise the kind of criticism that this thread has generated.

and they and the players STILL get it wrong and thats with the awful videoref system at all games!!!!!!

Oh the irony!

If I were in Stuart Cummings place I would be negotiating with him now!

Agree 100%. Do you think the RFL will reaslise or do you think they'll stick with him and allow him to make a mockery of domestic games next year too?

Let's start a petition, Halibut out Kiwi in!!

How far away is Ian Smith from retirement?

He was shocking last night but come on, everybody has one.
I was shouting at the telly at how poor he was in policing the PTB but still, he'll improve in time. That was probably too big a stage for him at this moment in time.

Waht are your thoughts on teh ref? Whilst I agree with neutral refs and good to see SL bringing French Refs through ( I hope to see NZ ones in teh NRL one day) I thought at times he was very pedantic with the holding down and yet was quite generous with the offsides and markers not square. A couple of gaffs but overall I thought he did ok. 6/10 on the scoresheet.

I felt that he got a couple of things clearly wrong ie the tackle in air they missed. But with the forward passes it's nearly always the touchies that give them via the comms. So I can't blame him for any of that.

I do notice that the the English and French refs seem to allow the tackle to go on longer than perhaps the NRL where they'd call "held" earlier. I actually don't think that's a bad thing though as it can get called far too early here when there is still a lot of momentum.

Whilst he did miss the tackle in the air, again that should have been the touchies call. he was only a few metres away and had a clear unobstructed view. I do wonder exactly what touchies are watching sometimes!

They say a lot more than people give them credit for. We get DVDs of our games with all the comms on and they are responsible for about 80+% of the offsides given in a game. The ref just blows the whistle.

From what I've seen he's a terrible ref and seems in constant doubt/hesitance about decisions e.g. even apparantly changing his mind on occassion.

There's been a lot of criticism of Thierry Alibert from the weekend for "missing" a man being tackled when he was off the ground. As usual the bleating Sky commentators went on about this for much longer than it deserved.
For me Alibert ruins every game he refs but this incident didn't contribute to that feeling.
In fact I think his decision was right! As far as I am aware the rule on this only applies to a DEFENDING player. As this tackle was on an attacking player trying to catch the ball it was legal.

Why would you think it legal to tackle someone who doesn't have the ball?


The rulebook is freely available as an on-line PDF.

From the notes in the rules...

1. (b) It is illegal to tackle an opposing player attempting to field a kick whilst the player is in mid-air. The catcher must have returned to the ground before being tackled. (See Section 15.).

Good call, agree with that.

Looks too much like Jasper Carott to be taken seriously

He's exactly the problem with Refs in Super league and I'm sure RL in general. He gets credit for spotting minor things we as spectators don't and then misses the most obvious call in the world. The Fox tackle in the air was exactly the kind of thing referees should NEVER miss. You can cloud the issue with touch judges if you like but surely everyone realises they are deformed zombies who wander up and down the touch line incapable of any other movement. Once or twice a season they wander onto the pitch to disallow a Quins try but apart from that they don't do anything.

In any case if the ref is watching the play he sees the player being tackled in the air from anywhere in the stadium. You don't need a touch judges call just because they're within a few feet. A tackle in the air is a tackle in the air and, unlike any indiscretion at the ruck or such like, should be bloody obvious!

I think it would be fair to say that he should get the final, I know he wont because hes dire. But really in fairness to both teams, hes neutral as he is french, his team are not in the final, so why not give it to a neutral ref for no biased view.

I hear the finals going to Ganson though.

Good selective choice there. This note goes on to say "Applies only when a player on the non-kicking team catches the ball on the full."

Its a shame that it was decided to bury the "tackle in the air" topic in with the general whinging about Alibert.
The main point of this post is that most of us don't know the rules of our own game. Particularly in this case, Sky TV had a current Super League coach, a former World Cup Winner and a former England and Great Britain captain in the commentary box and they all called this wrong.