Possibly so. What concerns me however, is that the situation has progressively worsened during the reign of Mr.Cummings. He watches all the matches that we do. He is not a stupid man and he has reffed at the highest level. He can see that the forward pass rule virtually does not exist in league nowadays and that there are huge problems regarding ball steals, knock ons etc. This has been the case for years now over here and he has done absolutely nothing about it. Therefore, I can only assume this is the new way he wishes the game to be played. I for one, cannot stand watching a rugby league that now says it was forward, but so what. That is not and never was, IMO, how league was meant to be played. ALL refs seem fixated on players being square and on side and on watching replay after replay on the big screen, to see if a player has grounded the ball etc, which is fine, but not when it seems some of the basic and crucial rules of our game, seem to be being overlooked. As all refs seem to ref in this manner,I can only assume that this is the way they are directed to do things. Very wrong and very sad IMO. I love and always will love our game, but there are a lot of areas that could easily be improved for the good of the game in general, but it would seem our director of match officials is happy with how thing are. I believe that says a lot.

i dont think things are as bad as your making out

Just what I was thinking, the speed of the game does not help the match officials and they have to be 100% certain to give them. As long as they look at the hands and make a fair judgement then its okay

Is it not todays coaches obsission with the flat pass which has brought the RU comparison of a foot or two forward is alright ?

The number of forward passes that are missed or not given is embarrassing,when you see them on the telly the passer is stood behind the line & then the receiver catches it 3 yards past the line.It is a complete joke.