It has to be said that Phil Benthams refereeing in the Hull derby was a massive contributory factor with regards to the overall entertainment and drama. We had a referee who recognised that this game is played by men, is fast, is prone to the odd infringement due to the pace and that pride and passion are all part and parcel of the RL package. Thus players will occasionally let their emotions take over. Bentham allowed the 80's biff to return to combine with the Super League pace and we had a classic.

Silverwood. Needs to be the centre of attention in tonights (very poor) game, is trying to balance his errors and yet again we have a penalty fest.

silverdud missed a very dirty cheap shot from j tomkins on myler, i think that incident cud be referred to the rfl

Both are poor officials. I'm getting sick and tired of supporters defending referees who ignore teams persistently infringing in order to create a "flowing" game. Silverwood missed a forward pass, but otherwise his decisions were spot on. The teams should sort their discipline out.

i thought we were thinking celebrity death match type contest.

Bentham was great last night. Silverwood has been terrible for a while now. We (Warrington) always get him @ St Helens and he may aswell wear the red vee. Ganson best ref in SL by a country mile.

I am getting sick and tired of people on this board blaming referees all time.
If its so easy go and do it yourself.
Bet you dont though do you.

And there's nothing more pathetic than the "if you can't do it better, do it yourself" brigade. Saying that things need improving is NOT the same as saying "I could easily do a better job and choose not to".

I really hope that you've never, ever criticised anything. Or if you have, that you've then gone out and done the job yourself. Ever criticised a pop group? Well if it's so easy then record a number 1 single. Ever criticised a politician? Well, where's your name on the ballot paper?

No-one argues that the referees have a difficult job, and it's unlikely that they're ever going to please everyone. But when they make the same mistakes, week in week out, the controller should be telling them and they should be improving. If they don't, then demote them and bring forward lower league referees. The full time argument went out of the window when they appointed Jamie Child, so I can;t see any reason at all why this doesn't happen as Stuart promised it would when he came in.

What a contradictory post!!!

I was thinking just the same myself. Reads as 'He's bad, but he was really good.'

Both are poor officials and generally make mistakes that I do not see Ganson or Ian Smith making. Not sure why that is so difficult to understand.

Thought Bentham had a decent game, but to be fair - that's their job. If I ballsed up like some of them do, I would be in big trouble at work. Just because it's a sport doesn't mean that the competence should be any different.

Ganson 7.5
Bentham 6.5
Smith 6
Childs 5
Silverwood 4

Why is it that ALL the "expert" match officials on these forums are NEVER prepared to actually go out and show that they can and will do better.

It's ALWAYS the match officials fault, never ever the player who mistimes a pass, drops the ball, misses a tackle, throws a forward pass, reefs the ball, stands offside, obstructs a defender etc., etc..

It's ALWAYS the match official.

It's NEVER the coach who is incapable of teaching the players to do the right thing or condones what they do so it's AGAIN the match officials fault.

If it's a fans team that have poor players who regularly get beaten by better opposition then it's not's that fans team who are at fault, it's the match officials AGAIN!!!!

Mo & Ron Ball's game have great difficulty in recruiting match officials.

We need to ensure that THE GREATEST GAME" never suffers to the same degree as that game but continuing sniping like that game allows is creeping into this game and if not acted upon will not only reduce the number of people coming forward but will alienate the people for whom the RL rule of respect for match officials is one of the key parts of the game.

I'm more bothered about video officiating. Mathers knock on went backwards apparently. I'm not bitter about it though....

Smith doesn't make mistakes. He just chooses to ignore what he sees.

Ganson is the best by a mile.
Silverwood is the worst by a mile!

Not much to chose between the rest, I think Smith is the best VR and has been for a few seasons.

Says a Saints fan













The people who along with Leeds don't know the meaning of the word FORWARD!!!!









They see thing that arn't actually there.

Now that IS a worrying situation