Wolves Made To Sweat For Narrow Broncos Win After a disappointing start to the Qualifiers, London Broncos faced their stiffest test of the competition as they came up against the nailed-on certainties for an automatic Super League 2018 place, the Warrington Wolves. London knew that a win would lift them into the second of the Million Pound game positions in advance of the Catalans facing Halifax tomorrow at the Shay. A loss would almost certainly signify Championship rugby for 2018. Warrington made just one change from the side who beat Halifax with Kurt Gidley coming in on the bench after missing the last four. London welcomed back Api Pewhairangi, Eddie Battye, Tom Spencer, Matt Garside and Ben Evans to the side which lost narrowly to Hull KR last time out. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Wolves Made To Sweat For Narrow Broncos Win After a disappointing start to the Qualifiers, London Broncos faced their stiffest test of the competition as they came up against the nailed-on certainties for an automatic Super League 2018 place, the Warrington Wolves. London knew that a win would lift them into the second of the Million Pound game positions in advance of the Catalans facing Halifax tomorrow at the Shay. A loss would almost certainly signify Championship rugby for 2018. Warrington made just one change from the side who beat Halifax with Kurt Gidley coming in on the bench after missing the last four. London welcomed back Api Pewhairangi, Eddie Battye, Tom Spencer, Matt Garside and Ben Evans to the side which lost narrowly to Hull KR last time out. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Brave effort from the Broncos, deserved the lead at half time but were made to pay for allowing the visitors a try I. The 39th minute.
Wire came out hard from the restart with a flurry of tries,but seemed to put the cue back on the rack before the game was really over.
Good to see London pushing their SL opponents right to the end - how costly those first half missed conversions turned out to be!

Weren't both missed conversions from the sidelines though? Seen some comments about needing a decent kicker, but seems a bit harsh over kicks that El Masri or even Greg Pearce wouldn't be dead certs to convert.

Comment about needing a decent kicker actually came from the kicker himself in the post match interview.
Reckon Sykes would have got em

Some incomprehensible decisions from the ref's "assistants". Not good enough for a high-stakes game or, indeed, for a very good ref who I thought was let down.

So close again. Still believe that we can make the MPG.

What decisions were those colly? Don't forget the TJ,s only make decisions on 2 things, the rest they give advice.
The call for in touch from the penalty could have gone either way, the wire player jumped from the field of play, he was off the ground when he batted the ball ball back, was his forearm still on it when his foot landed on the line? You can't even see that from the tv if I was so a pretty good call

And we don't have referees assistants in rugby league they are touch judges!

I think when we look back on the RL season as a collective of rugby league fans generally the one thing that stands out is how dire officiating has been. It really seems to have hit an all time low.

Week after week we are seeing massive blunders. I think we need a complete overall of how we manage the officiating programme from interpretation of rules, the VR, referee/player interaction etc etc. We need to set up a working group with various stakeholder and strip the programme right back. We just can't allow a belligerent and bombastic Ganson to carry on running the programme in isolation without recourse or accountability.

I used to do some reffing in the southern leagues and looking back on it once I had passed my test of the rules the focus was then on Fitness. Periodically I had to go and do running tests... never did they talk about game management, interpretations of rules, focus areas.......

Wq you obviously didn't do the course with me!
What massive blunders are you talking about? There was very little wrong with that game last night.
Not sure what evidence you have to say it has hit an all time low!!!! There is always going to be the human factor, and error will be made, but it's part of the game and unless you are going to turn it into American football where they have a plethora of officials on the pitch you have to accept the human in the game.
Communication and game management is a massive part of the game at all levels.
I do think the VR decisions sometimes go far too deep into minutiae, slowing things down too much put a whole new perspective the Tony clubb Ben barba ball strips being prime example, in my view both were knock on, in open play they likely would have been ko

NB rest assured having reffed I understand the difficulties particularly on a back field with no TJ's, with players who listen to Stevo each week lambasting Refs!

I dont want the game to be sterilised

That said;

When I listen to the refs on their mikes its quite clear to me a number of them lack man management skills which is critical in any management position in any job (which is ultimately the role they are in). I get the sense they are above anything beyond question.
The VR is a shambles, as Ive said before if the ref asks to look at the grounding look at the grounding, not the the onside offside, not crossing not anything- I like the Bunker they have in Aus its very fast and transparent in that they talk through there decision as they are making it to the crowd.
Inconstancy of rule interpretation needs looking at as much as there are many human influences with players and refs it still needs review

As mentioned why not set up a working group with refs, players, coaches, club owners, fans.... and strip the officiating programme down and come up with some 'measurables' that can be measured. Ganson and co can then present against what the WG wanted and what they got. They cannot be beyond reproach thats for sure.

Wasn't meant as a criticism of Sammut' kicking, one of those kicks hit a post, that's how close he came. And its on those small margins games are won and lost sadly.
Another poster said Sykes would have got them, exactly what Mrs from Erith said at the game last night.
Although I was thoroughly entertained by last night's game I also worry that we're going to get stuck into an end of season Groundhog Day scenario- good enough to make the 8's but not quite good enough to get promoted. Because ultimately we all want to see London back in the top division don't we?

Totally agree with the bunker system,clinical no nonsense decision making. I have my decision I'm going to the board 10 seconds done and dusted.

The bunker in aus still look at onside offside at any kick before anything, the bunker in aus still make some calls that are debatable.
Sadly we are way behind the aus game when it comes to tv and vid refs, they televise every game and have vr at every game.
Like I have said before, the problem that has been made with the VR is the sky coverage, if the ref asks for foot in touch at a try, then it's seen he has missed a poor grounding refs get slated again!!!! So looking at everything sadly makes sense.
Reality is, and I know this from experience, some players don't know the rules, a lot of fans don't! Some on here are very knowledgable some shocking, so who do you get on the working group?

One day NB you will open your eyes and see what we all see the refs and officials are crap and this needs over hauling we have lost major games from poor decisions especially last night. Like you they appear not to give 50 /50 decisions if someone upsets them (your words a couple of days ago) When a team gets the wrong and poor decisions time after time it must be difficult not to question a ref. 90% OF FANS cannot be wrong about the so called professional refs the amateurs do a better job.

This... the turning point of the game 3 minutes before half time, where we were given a penalty and Sammut should have kicked the ball well over the touchline, but he didn't. You can see clearly the Wire player touching the ball from that Sammut kick and has his foot on the line with the touch judge less than 5 meters behind the incident. He must have seen that being so close. A converted try was scored from the subsequent set leaving us just 14-10 ahead at the break.

Cracking picture, only problem is you cannot see his hand or arm on the ball, go back 2 frames when his foot is off the floor when he makes first contact with the ball, it's a difficult call is his forearm still touching the ball when his foot lands?
run it at normal speed, then critisise, at the moment every London fan says he was on the floor, call it the other way every wire fan says he was still in the air.
touchy has to make a snap decision at full speed without slow motion.
Was it his error or was it sammuts error for not getting the ball out.
it was a 50/50 I agree, it went against us, does not make him a bad touchy.
for me and I am a London fan don't forget he was off his feet when he hit the ball, was his forearm still touching it when he landed , you can't tell from that picture or the tv shot.
that was not the deciding point of the game!

I do find it quite interesting that no one is arguing the Dixon try! To every wire fan, I put money on they are saying it was a double knock on! That one went our way and we are not knocking the VR for that one, it was the touchy that saw it by the way and suggested it should be checked. Few of the london players were watching it on the monitor by Angela powers, and thought it came of the forearm and then bounced fwd into sammuts hands, VR saw it as his chest. One is a knock on the other isn't, that one went our way.

NB - you are quite right. The Dixon try was one of the incomprehensible decisions made by those assisting the ref. Indeed, one of many. Child had a terrible night - the Hughes knock-on in the Hiku try was just as bad; and Atkins was inexplicably rescued by him twice, the latter call on 78 mins, killing the game in a rather sinister manner. It is difficult to imagine a more inept VR performance (though I am told we had one on Friday night).

As I said earlier, poor Liam Moore was badly let down. We fans were let down.

Anyone closer to the action have a view on the tackle in the last minute? I was stood on the opposite touchline so it wasn't clear but my impression was of a late tackle, possibly a cannonball? Thought it was a penalty.

It was a penalty and very clear on sky and the touch judge could not possibly have missed it unless he has a white stick.

The reason it was not given as a penalty! Ref had not called held, so legitimately he can join the tackle. Contact was midrift or top of thighs at worse, so no cannonball, he wasn't slowing the ptb down cos it was last, so there was no legitimate penalty. No dangerous contact, no effect on the next ptb, can't say it was late as tackle had not been called complete even though he was on one knee.
Interestingly the bench had it been a penalty gave the players the choice of go for draw or go for win.
TJ raiseed his flag didn't he? So he didn't miss it! Ref made the call of turn over I think with vr help

NB is the cannonball an offence against the rules, when executed before the ref shouts held?

Third man in hitting the legs you wouldn't think is against the rules more a morale thing. Don't the NRL make the third man in come in at waist height?

It wasn't a cannonball though, look where he came in it was at worst round his upper thigh dixon actually had one knee on the ground. Not defending it, it was a stupid thing to do, but there was nothing they could penalise him for, I wanted the penalty as much as anyone.
Any cannonball tackle is dangerous and should be a yellow! As for the NRL so what? We don't play NRL

So you've missed the question,

Is the cannonball an offence against the rules, when executed before the ref shouts held?

I'm not interested in the NRL, or Dixon or anything else (a bit like is it grounding or not, forget onside offside)

Thought I said, any cannonball tackle is classed as dangerous. And it was you that asked about NRL not me.
Wo it raises the question what is a cannonball tackle