I've never heard of the ref, never met him, he's not a colleague. I just don't think its appropriate for amateur clubs to slate volunteer officials online.

Doubtless you're the perfect match official who never gets anything wrong.

I'm afriad the Junior Ref system is poor. Usually full of dweeds who was no good at the game themselves. Sames goesfor linesmen.

All referees get things wrong occasionally; I got things wrong due to not having three hundred and sixty degree vision , poor positioning, lapses of concentration etc, I even got things wrong and nobody noticed. When you do make a mistake you hope it doesn't have a major bearing on the result as in the incident we a re discussing. This one was obviously recoverable which is the worst aspect of it all.

I've seen lots of good young ref's, in fact it's this type of response and the lack of respect from the parents on the touch line, that spoils most junior games not the ref.

No Ref no game.....as Alexander says Simples

It's also this sort of comment and lack of respect from the touchline, why local societies have difficulty retaining new referees young and not so young. Every society has a development officer - In Leigh's case Joe Cobb assisted by Terry Sykes and Chris Waywell - who work damn hard recruiting and, with the help of the RFL's regional develoment officers, training and advising these new referees. And, like players, some will develop quicker than others, and some will become better than others, but they all deserve the opportunity to progress as far as they can and should be given the due respect they deserve.

As well as being deserving of respent, referees should also be advised about earning it.

You think they aren't. A hell of a lot of effort goes into helping these guys in ALL aspects of their game. Instead of hiding behind an anonymous username and criticising them maybe YOU should make yourself known and be helping them (like the rest of us) by passing on your knowledge and experience.

I acknowledge all the effort that societies are putting into the development of referees but I can assure you from personal observations that some referees have not taken on board the respect advice.The majority of the young lads are fine but there is a minority who have a touch too much arrogance and an air of superiority that is like a red rag to a bull to the very people who are supposed to respect them.
Fortunately for every referee with a "bad" attitude there are scores with the correct attitude which is positive but whilst referees can be improved by education and experience you need to have a good raw material.

I think the penalty decision at the scrum was a poor call. How many times do we actually see a properly formed scrum in RL at any level? And to give the first penalty for it in the last minute was a bad judgement. If you are going to clamp down on it, do it in the first minute, not the last.

My more serious concern is how those two tackles didn't get properly dealt with at the time. The first could have caused some serious damage. Surely that should be more of concern than the penaly decision. Rugby is a tough enough game with tackles like that flyng about and going unpunished.

The silence is deafening Joe

Or maybe that could be down to the fact he is in South Africa with BARLA U19s refereeing?

OMG he will get where water wont ,wonder how he got selected for that