How many 'big games' were there that year? Leeds finished 5th in the league? The top 4 have to play each other so thats 12 games, plus their games against leeds you have decided so thats 20, Hull Finished level on points with leeds so if we include leeds we include hull so now we are up to 30 'big games'. Then we have the derbys so 2 more for The hull derbies, 2 more for Wakefield v Cas, 2 more for Leeds Bradford so we are up to 36 'big games'. To share between by your 5 referees.

So out of those 36 games, the 5 senior refs, if chosen at random, would get just over 7. However Phil Bentham broke his leg midway through the season and didnt ref again, so there were really 4.5 senior refs. So each of them, if chosen completely at random would have refereed 8 of those 36 'big games'

Can you guess how many James Child refereed that year? Your year, that you chose as an example of his preferential treatment?

Go on, take a guess. Then google the phrase 'confirmation bias'

You lost all credibility when you added Wakey v Cas as 'big games'... and even adding in Hull shows how desperate you are to get the numbers to balance.

Lost credibility?

People in glass houses....

So after arguing in your previous post that we should expect the more experienced refs to get more big Sky games you're now trying to make out how they should be shared out and including some extra nonsense games to boost your figures. BTW i didn't even include Thierry Alibert so another official much more experienced than him in that year and you think he got Leeds vs Wigan and Wigan vs Saints in the league just out of pure dumb luck of rotation? Didn't see Hicks or Tim Roby get any of those marquee games by pure dumb luck of 'rotation'.....oh and Child's is reffing Leeds again for the 2nd week running this week and 3 time in 6 games..,,,,rotation eh

Can you provide any link to show that Thaler was dropped for not sending off Ferres?

In relation to Westwood, it wasn't so obviously late, it was more to do with where he hit him. I don't think Child saw it, and the touch judge only really came on because Sutcliffe stayed down and realised the hit might have been higher than they'd realised. The touch judge ambled on and Child referred to the video ref.

You don't know what personnel issues are going on during the week. They don't work just one day a week, you know.

[list=[/list
I could point out your factual errors that hicks and Roby did referee those games, I could point out their relative lack of experience. I could explain to you confirmation bias, I could prove your argument wrong on it's merits.

But it has no merits, So if you wish to out yourself as one of 'those people' feel free.

Go on then, list those big games between the big 4 clubs that Hicks and Roby got around the same time. As for experience they weren't far behind Child, who himself was miles behind several other referees but got picked for marquee league games well before he was ready for them.

Can anyone making the case for positive discrimination actually show that he got more games? Surely before we debate why he got them or how this unfairly benefited him you need to actually prove it happened in the first place.

I think they need to ask why is it positive discrimination. If they are getting preferential treatment, why do they think its because of their personal preferences? Its all assumptions and no proof which tells you more about the type of person the OP is.

Indeed.

Keep digging that hole. Your baseless accusations say far more about you than anyone else.

Though it is funny that to save face on your nonsense about 2012 you have redefined what a 'big game' is so that it now excludes the game you are complain about Child being appointed to this week.

In 2012/2013 he was for the most part booked to the teams near the bottom of the table, the "lesser" club for lack of a better term. The week before he got Leeds/Wigan he did Catalans/London, the week before he did Wigan Saints he did Widnes/Wakey, the week before Saints/Wigan in 2013 he got the only non all SL clash in the CCQF's Sheffield/London.

The latter games were how he was booked 80/85% of the time, befitting of his experience and performances at that point......yet somehow he got 3 of the most plum league games in a 12 month period with the 3 aforementioned games even though he was like 5th most experienced??!

Even if you don't think it's to do with positive discrimination surely you must admit there's something very dodgy about the way he got given these massive games given his position on the refereeing ladder at the time.

So to recap, in the year you chose to highlight his positive discrimination Child was 5th most experienced referee, and 1 of those 4 more experienced only refereed for less than half a season because of a broken leg.

In that season you have defined the games between the teams finishing 1,2,3 and 5th as big games (the teams finishing 4th and joint 5th arent big games, even though you are complaining about him refereeing Leeds v Hull the teams who finished joint 5th)

During that season when Child was 4th most experienced ref for most of the season he refereed 3 big games.

By your definition their being 13 big games that year

So the 4th/5th most experienced ref, refereed just under a quarter of the big games.

This is evidence of his favourable treatment.

Also most of the time he didnt referee big games

This is also evidence of favourable treatment.

So in conclusion in 2012 James Child was the 4th/5th most experienced ref, got just under 25% of the big games, and when he gets big games this is evidence of favourable treatment, when he doesnt get big games this is also evidence of favourable treatment and ThePrinter cannot work out how to google confirmation bias.

Nope he was the 6th, only jumping up to 5th on Bentham's injury, and he was back in action by the time of the aforementioned Saints vs Wigan game of 2013 so he was way back down the list to 6th again.

Still continue to bury your head in the sand and pretend all is above board with his appointments.

ahh so now you have had spread in to a new season to back up your point? and only up until a certain point for some reason.

So if we deliberately define big games in a certain way, and we deliberately define the period of time we are looking at in a certain way, and we argue that we judge them on performance but don't promote him ahead of Alibert whose seniority consisted of 4 games in 2008, then...

My God...Perhaps your right, theres something definitely dodgy here.


Hang on, no, wait, there were 27 regular season games between the top 4, (12 normal ones, 3 magic Weekend) Child was 6th best apparently, Though Bentham missed half a year. So to find out the amount they should have refereed, if the referees were appointed at random we simply dived 27 by 5.75. Which gives us 4.7.
So if appointed at random, given YOUR definition of big game, given YOUR definition of experienced referees, and given YOUR expansion of the time frame from 2012 (the year YOU picked as highlighting his beneficial treatment) to include 2013 James Child should have refereed 4 or 5 big games.

You wanna hazard a guess at how many it was?

No he shouldn't because the top 2 refs, the ones who get the cup and playoff semis and finals get the biggest league games, not your pathetic scrambling shared maths effort.

Also Alibert had reffed England vs NZ internationals, WC games. the 2011 WCC, so vastly more experienced.

Try as desperately as you want, but simple question do you think the 5th most experienced ref should be appointed to games such as Wigan vs Saints & Leeds?

Considering you're always slagging the game, RFL, clubs off for not marketing, promoting the game as well as they should then surely not putting their top refs in charge of the marquee tv league games surely you should think the RFL should appoint the most experienced best refs to these fixtures???

As we have shown. They don't really.

Alibert was a neutral ref. One also publicly rejected as not of international standard.

Yes.

I think fans and anyone with a brain would think it ludicrous if only one or two referees were, for the most part, allowed to referee the big clubs.

I also think it pretty funny that your new line of argument is such a strong argument against your original complaint. That Child is refereeing Leeds v Hull this week. If we accept all your ridiculous premises, and all your ridiculous suppositions, then logic is in complete opposition of your complaint.

Thaler was officially "rotated" last weekend - so he has gone from biggest game of the week to Championship and this week is straight back into the biggest game of the week. It's hard to discern if the official "rotation" line makes more sense than him being dropped given he comes straight back in at the top.

Every ref who has gone onto red Wigan/Saints since has either reffed a playoff final/semi or go onto....apart from 5th choice Child.



Did he have much more experience of internationals and a WCC under his belt yes or no Mr Dodge the question?



No they wouldn't because the best refs always have gotten the biggest games and Wigan vs Saints & Leeds are as big as they come.....but hell must be rotation. It's one thing if the 5th choice referee got Wigan when they played Widnes or London or Salford for example, very different to appoint them when they play Leeds and Saints.

You know they're BS appointments and he shouldn't have gotten them considering his ranking on the referee's ladder at the time but you don't want to admit it because of possible questions it raises. No one with an ounce of common sense who follows the game can honestly say Child getting ALL 3 of those marquee games in a 12 month period is logical. 1 game, ol, 3 games is BS.

Has anyone checked to see the fixture lists for certain games? If there are a number of bigger games this may be why JC has refereed certain games?

Where is James Child from? I've noted that it seems more plausible that referees are likely to cover teams near to their own patch (Thaler: Wakey, Cas, Hull; Bentham: Warrington, Widnes, Leigh) so that the RFL aren't paying out loads for travel costs and extra expenses.

Has anyone measured how the other referees performed in subsequent weeks running up to those games? Is it a case that other referees may have been dropped to lower games and JC rewarded?

There are probably a huge number of other factors to consider or even throw out there.

I assume he's from Leeds (or at least somewhere near) as he's a quantity surveyor for Leeds Council according to my dad.

Another thread ruined by SmokeyTA: An SJW who misses the point more often than not and who loves to throw out lots of insults to try and make himself feel superior.

I see the goalposts have changed again, and are still wrong

Thierry Alibert never reffered a playoff final or semi.
Ian Smith refereed many Wigan/Saints games and never a play-off final or Semi

You didnt ask a question. But he didnt have 'much more experience of internationals and a WCC under his belt no. His experience on internationals were almost all 2nd tier internationals after his quality was publicly stated as not being good enough.


ALL 3? there were by your own measure there were 27. There is something here which is certainly BS. Im not sure it is what you think it is though.

Its always nice to see someone so eager to tell on themselves.

SJW

Ironically I would usually agree with you regarding Smokey ruining threads, but in this case the thread was ruined as soon as it was started.