Agreed, he can blow a whistle.

Take a look at our board and at least 75%+ are blaming the ref for the defeat. The fact is even though he was very poor on friday the players should have adapted and played to the ref rather than trying to take things into their own hands.
As for Kath & Agar coming out against the ref, they have only done that to deflect the criticism at his inept coaching and keep him in a job for a while longer.

As easy as it would be to criticise Hull/Agar in the same way as their fans did to us over Morgan's Thaler rant - I can't. Well done to both I say. Strong words but none the less honest and true.

I also get the impression Richard Agar had his piece about Child prepared long before the match too!

Still, Hull/Agar should expect a fine but someone had to say something soon.

If Agar wouldn`t do it ,I would. I`m serious.
And I don`t mean just over this one game.

If the standard of match officials is so poor, as "experts" on these forums keep telling us, then why are these "experts", who know what is wrong, out there showing easy it is and how it should be done?

When they have been out there and done it we would all be able to see how easy it is and how they have never made an error or penalised anyone.

The players , of course, will be perfect little angels (and butter wouldn't melt in their collective mouths) and will play by the rules all the time.

It always amazes me that there are people who think that people who break the rules should not be punished if caught.

If you think the rules are wrong there are ways and means of attempting to get them amended/removed/changed.

I presume we have the best set of full-time refs the RFL can muster, in which case you're not going to be able to magic up new referees next week. I also presume all these referees are coached/trained/developed by the RFL to help them improve. All slagging the ref does is deter younger and future referees from signing up, thereby reducing the pool of competent officials for the future. So I say there's a direct link between abusing the ref and their competence in future years, and the people to blame are the coaches, directors and fans who commit this abuse. It's been said many times on this forum that you should take up the whistle yourself rather than complaining, because if nothing else you'll find out how bad you and your knowledge is.

not that agar appears to be a ninja assasin or anything, but have you seen james child? my gran could mess him up

Good point

He makes Thierry Alibert look like Arnie doesnt he.



I still think he ought to give it a go though. I can imagine him shaking with rage as he smashes Agars office door off its hinges round the KC Stadium and bursts in shouting 'You got a problem or something pal?'


He better be quick though. Brian Noble will be in Agars office very soon. And he is an ex Policeman.

Yes you can, they are all on here moaning and they of course can do better.

I don't see the problem with a shortage

Whilst I do think that Agar was addressing the Hull FC fans, rather than the governing body, he probably has a point. If it was any other ref, I’d put his rant down to him trying to save his job by complaining about the ref, but this is Child we’re talking about. I rarely blame ref’s, but he really doesn’t belong in Super League.
He ruins games.

We, in the Championship, warned you all about him when he was announced as a SL ref last season. So, I’m not surprised by any of this at all.

I agree with you but there is something inherently wrong with a system that results in, as Agar predicts: "All we will get is a sheet next week, telling us that all of his decisions were correct".

They surely can't all be correct?

Have you put your name forward?

I don't know if each club gets an official review of every ref's decision each week, or if they only get one if they ask the refs' controller to review the specific match. The former, in my view, would be useless. Over a season, every club would build up a list of mistakes/grudges about every ref if their mistakes were admitted. This could lead to a disastrous loss of authority on and off field for those refs. In the latter case, I think the problem is that most decisions coaches take issue with are not incorrect calls (eg, the ref didn't spot a knock-on), but matters of interpretation where the coach thinks it should have gone one way, but the ref went the other (eg stealing/knock-on). Coaches' other big complaint is inconsistency, as they'll complain that their team was penalised for offence A (usually offside), but then list every occasion the other team weren't penalised for the same offence, while completely ignoring all the other times their own team wasn't penalised for the same offence, or the other team was ! In those circumstances, there's not many places for the ref's controller to go. On matters of interpretation, the ref is right. He has to be - whatever his decision - because otherwise we'd be handing over control of the game to the coaches - not a great plan. So it's possible for a ref to get every penalty he blows absolutely correct, but still leave a coach fuming.

So I guess that's why the sheet which comes back, as Agar would have it, always tends to agree with the decisions.

Refs do make mistakes, and if they make enough of them, they find themselves missing out on the high-pressure important games, or even dropping down a league, although I think the advent of full-time refs - something I have always disagreed with and still disagree with - gave the RFL far less flexibility for performance management. But I stand by my original post. If Agar genuinely wants to blame his predicament by using his position to unprofessionally play to the crowd and publically attack a referee, then he's a doubly poor coach : firstly for not being able to get decent performances out of his squad, and secondly for lacking the self-awareness to realise that he is a large part of the problem, without which awareness he can't improve.

Being a teacher how would you punish young master Agar for his petulant outburst Sir?

Maybe he could write out 'I must not question the authority of the match official'

500 times.

In Latin.


Check that he hasn't taped 3 pencils together to try and fool you though sir. Young Agar looks a bit of a sneaky type to me.



Or maybe he could simply report to your study for a darned good thrashing?

I bet you would like to administer that wouldn't you Sir?

I am not an "expert" at flying a Jumbo jet,but I tell you what, I bet I could tell if the pilot was an"expert" or not by the way he flew it.

I am a world away from supporting Agar on his outburst. I honestly believe he has seized upon James Childs's performance as a perfect diversion to his own coaching inadequacies. Nor do I blame the ref for Hull losing, after all, what's to say that with a far more laissez-faire ref, Cas wouldn't have cut loose and scored a hatfull?

Having played to a decent amateur standard before injury set me on the path of officiating, I still have concerns about the lack of a clear and transparent path in referee development and even more so at the lack of any accountability for performance. Simply "not getting the good games" is not enough.

I've stated on other threads that until we can broaden the base of the officiating pyramid, we will always struggle to find the required number of competent officials that we need to keep referee performance at top level. Every speccie, player or club official who views junior referees as fair game to vent their own inadequacies, is to blame for the paucity of officials and nothing will improve until that changes.

I agree with your concerns over full-time officials, especially when they are employed in a dual capacity as both referee and touch judge. The roles can be interchangeable at lower levels, indeed most of our younger touch judges are also Championship referees. I have no problem with that but once a referee makes the full-time, SL list, he should no longer be used as a TJ and that also includes any international games - he should be completely focussed on developing his game "in the middle". I can only think of one current SL referee who is used in such a manner, he happens to be the subject of discussion. Could there be a connection?

I agree that not getting the good games isn't sufficient. But sadly it's all we have.

The problem with the full-time refs is that you can't afford to pay many, and once they're there, you can't justify the salary if you don't play them in SL. So you have a really small pool of talent, and no way in or out of it in the short-term. So if a ref has a loss of form, or just turns out to have been promoted one grade above his ability (a fairly common occurence in every workplace in the world), then you're stuffed. There was no problem in RL which required full-time refs to solve it. I've always thought that the use (or lack of use) of TJs is scandalous in the era of instant comms between the officials, for example.

However, this is the world we have, and we have to deal with it until such time as someone at Red Hall starts asking why Stuart Cummings has been allowed to establish a small unaccountable empire with no apparent benefit to anyone other than its employees.

We went to Saints last year as the team with the lowest score on the bad boys list.
Childs saw fit to completly penalise us out of the game with some utterly baffling decisions.
You cannot adapt to the game of a Ref who hasn't a bloody clue, Simply because he doesn't even know what he is doing most of the time.

Hmmmmmmmm

I can feel an e-mail to Richard Lewis coming on.

Reverting to part-time officials may be viewed as a retrograde step but until someone can prove that full-time has led to tangible benefits to the game, not just the officials, then it is worthy of consideration, no matter what the consequences.

Stuart Cummings also seems to reside under a cloak of invincibility and this, I believe extends to his fiefdom, something that must change. He used to have an "Ask Stuart" column, something that has also bitten the dust. Paying spectators (through the gate or via Sky subscription), as stakeholders in the game, deserve better communication from the man in charge.

Little seems to have changed since I gave up refereeing Alliance and then five years later, 1st team lines. The path to success as a match official owes more to masonic principles than ability.

I'm sorry but as a currently graded and active match official, I feel the need to correct you on a couple of points. There is in fact a very clear pathway for new officials as far as development is concerned. This starts with development officers at a society level and then goes through to the regional development officers which in the case of Yorkshire region is a Hull society member Steve Taylor. The regional development officers then move on those capable of going further to the graded development officers and managers and those that are capable then go on up through the grades as fitness and performance allow. The fact is that some of us acheive our level much lower than we hope or expect and that is something we all have to come to terms with. One thing I do find quite strange is that match officials development comes under operations and NOT under the match officials department which is something I'm sure you knew anyway.

As for the Ask Stuart initiative, I suggest you ask the SL coaches why it was stopped as it was stopped at their request. They didn't like their moans being shown for what they actually are.

I'll also make a point about James Child and the Saints V Hull KR game last year as someone saw fit to mention it. How can you even attempt to blame him for 10 foul play penalties?

James also refereed the HKR v Crusaders game this year with a total of 13 penalties. Strange that for such a pedantic referee don't you think?

Oh and Roy, if I thought you were coming from a point of knowledge or understanding then I'd be worried at your comment but the fact that you made such a comment shows how little you really know. Sorry if that offends.

HKR - Crusaders was Robert Hicks. He's reffed Quins (away) which I wasn't at, and the home game with Catalans where he did a competent job - perhaps something to do with both sides wanting to play RL and not silly b*gg*rs.

Maybe James Child just does not like Hull FC plenty don't

And your proof of that is what, exactly? Because all the available evidence indicates that this is a genuine reaction to what was perceived to be a shocking performance by an official with a history of shocking performances. You can disagree with that reaction, but to suggest that it's all been put on simply as a deflection exercise flies in the face of the sequence of events for a start.

Do you include the tackle by Ben Fisher that clearly saw him hit the ball carrying player on the chest even though Mr Childs decided it was high as just one example?
Infact it was that bad that the commentators kept on talking about how we were getting unfairly hammered and that included the Saints loving Eddie BTW.

You had better go and tell the RFL/SL that then cause they don't think he reffed that one and seeing as I was there neither do I [url=http://www.superleague.co.uk/report.php?id=5980If you dont belive me look here![/url

Irony much?

I think you could argue that the change to full time referees has had a detrimental affect on the system as a whole (if not the quality of top individuals), as it will certainly have had an impact on the numbers who actually want to do the job.

why would anyone with a "proper" career give that up for a few years of being a referee - as a result, why would an ambitious young individual even enter the system knowing that they are never ever going to get any big games?