It's amazing the difference when a SL ref is in charge of an international. They will not police the ruck in SL, allowing teams to lay on for at least a good 5-6 seconds, but when they ref Australia v New Zealand, or one of them v England, they will penalise players for laying on after 2-3 seconds.

You'd have thought with the invention of Full Time refs they would have improved, better training etc but they are no better than when the likes of Bob Connolly, Stuart Cummings, Russell Smith, Steve Pressley and Karl Kirkpatrick were refereeing.

Of course all these refereeing discrepancies could be ruled out by a big screen at every game & the on field ref could just be a mouthpiece for the real refs watch the tv screen. But do we want a 4 hour game that stops every few seconds to check a decision? The game would finish up as a four hour borefest more suited to our friends across the pond.
As Morrisey said, it is an entertainment business & as long as refs are consistent what more can we expect. Thaler was good against Widnes & didn't we have Hicks at Hull who seemed to have a decent game on the radio. Unfortunately,coaches will always get teams like Wigan to bend the rules in order to get the upper hand because they can't win on a level playing field ,but it does ruin the spirit of the game.
Unfortunately,the game has suffered over the superleague years from ,in the early days, being the fast ,craved for spectacle to turning into a tactically spoiled modern game.

Wigan lay on as long as possible, other teams, particularly Leeds leave hands in to slow things down. It's all cheating within the rules, all teams do things that they hope will give them an edge, like when Briers continually cried/bleated/ whined to the ref to buy a few seconds... Third man in tackle, everybody does it, but then, everybody hates Wigan, so we do it more/differently/more dangerously... Trust me, we have heard it all before...

Both Wigan and Huddersfield until recently have employed the same "slow the ruck" tactics seen in the NRL.

This started with Michael Maguire and Nathan Brown, and has continued under Wane and to an extent, Anderson.

In terms of "cannonball". a lot of teams are doing it or a variant of it. Needs stopping but it;s not just Wigan

Instead of a ref, I'd like someone from the world of science, perhaps Professor Brian Cox, to explain why Sean O'Loughlin has some kind of individual problem with unavoidable forward momentum. Every time he gets up to play the ball he is dragged forward by some invisible force, lurching forward and takes a couple of steps past the marker until he is able to stop and play the ball. Not only is this seemingly unique to Sean (which must be a bit embarrassing) it also is invisible to all officials so it must have something to do with science.....mustn't it?

The hands in at the play the ball is every bit as bad as deliberate slow play. I would like the RFL to try to stamp this all out and promote skilful and entertaining play (Wigan and Leeds would be no worse off for this). I am willing to accept that could just be me. As you said though rightly or wrongly (often wrongly) if the referee doesn't penalise something then it's fair game.

Not just him loads of players do it cudjoe is one of the worst (rugby league players ever) for doing that. The annoying thing is the niggly offences like this can be sorted very easily by a few penalties for the first few offences. Coaches and team mates will soon stop the culprits for putting their team under the cosh.

I see a change to sentencing guidelines, no rule change.

The change in sentencing guidelines refers to shoulder charges (Hansen's wasn't, no rotation of the body) and cannonball tackles (Hansen's wasn't, regardless of whether you think he was committed or late, he hit the hip not the leg). Assuming this is the link you are referring to anyway: [urlhttp://www.castigers.com/article.php?id=4003[/url

Leeds are far and away the masters of leaving hands in, really annoys me.. We seem to lay-on, then clean break, which makes it look as if we are doing nothing wrong. But at least it allows the opposition to PTB without interference.. Leeds are really good at slyly leaving a hand in/on... Every credit to em.

I think the moral of the tale that The Mighty Wire need to stop being squeaky clean & start dishing the dirt with the rest.

Moving off the mark is endemic in the sport now and almost every player does it and it winds me up to a point that even Wire doing it p*ss*s me off.

I give no credit to any of it, even if a Wire player does it. It takes away from the slick spectacle of a sport we should have. It makes it uglier than it should be.

The thing i dont get is the fact that Wigan, with all its rich history........with being a rugby mad town.... With the largest volume of young players to choose from, ergo the best young talent.... is that they choose to play this particular brand of rugby.

Surely they should be the trailblazers... leading the way with a new and glorious expansive game... Teaching their endless stream of quality young players the right way to play the game and helping RL to grow as a sport... Instead we get "go out there and knock them out"... "ROADKILL ACHEIVED".. Lying on in the tackle, attacking the legs... all sorts of stuff.

Maybe its why their best young talent always seems to be hell bent on getting out of there fairly sharpish.

You can't blame any player or coach for attempting to take or create any advantage they can within or on the edge of the laws of the game. It is up to the RFL and referees to notice and then consistently apply the relevant law, or a common sense interpretation of the law.

Unfortunately consistency and common sense are all too lacking within the RFL and their referees.

How hard is it to police a correct ptb, even if it means sacrificing one game to the entertainment inspector. Play it with feet, don't move a metre forward.

Fantastic KT - brilliant !
Best laugh for a long time.

A lot to respond to in this thread. Firstly I'm really looking forward to tonight's game. I think Warrington have the edge and should be favourites but it could go either way.

1. Hanson on Ratchford. Firstly it was not a cannonball, not even close, Hansen made contact with the him. What caused the injury was Ratchford going over on his ankle whilst being pulled down by Richards. It would likely of happened whether Hansen had come in or not. I can understand the argument that Hansen shouldn't have entered the tackle so late however the ref had not called held therefore he has every right to do so. I believe the refs should be calling held a lot sooner than they did then and do now.

2. Cannonballs in general. I hate them, the potential for injury his huge. What some of you need to understand is the so called 'third man in' is not the issue it is how they enter the tackle that is the problem. I also understand that when Maguire came over a few Wigan players regularly entered tackles in a manner that they should not have done. I regularly critised my own team for it. I honestly don't believe it was a premeditated attempt to injure but a tactic designed to put a player to the floor to slow the play the ball down, it did however not take any consideration to the high potential for injury. It has correctly been banned and the punishment level upped which I believe is right too. If you look at the disciplinary for this season not a single Wigan player has been charged or banned for anything, never mind a cannonball which demonstrates that whatever indiscretions players have had in the past is no longer an issue. Having said that players from all teams will do things from time to time whether intentional or not, I hope I haven't jinxed tonight and someone does something stupid.

3. Slow play the balls. To be fair we are pretty good at it. If you watch Wigan don't lie on more than any other team, what we do is try and slow down the time it take from contact to the tackle being completed. Naturally if you put a lot of bodies into a tackle, once the ref has called held it takes longer for them all to get up. You may not like it but it is effective. Since day 1 all teams have sought ways to slow the play the ball down without getting penalised.

4. Moving off the mark. Players will get away with it when the defender leaves their hands on the attacker as benefit of the doubt is given to an attacker if he 'looses balance' whilst getting up and moves forward. Simple solution, if your defenders keep their hands out the attacker won't get the opportunity.

5. To whoever put up the lovely quote from Wane: Why do you never say the last 4 words? "but do it legal"