Tonight watching Saints and Salford with couldn't care who wins but there is no way Salford have any chance.

Match is about 50 minutes into 2nd half and no idea how it will finish but suspect large Saints win.

In watching I just get really frustrated that you can see what must happen. Dodgy no trys to Salford, the opposite to Saints and if we take as writing now (so no idea what is going on) we had a situation of a bomb and in my opinion Saints 16 is in offside position when near Patten who drops it, scrum to Saints, followed by a knock on from Wilkin not spotted and the try. Is this incompetence or is it already decided what is needed this season. I will forcast a Saints Warrington Grand Final, totally suit Sky and get way from the same clubs situation. Obviously I may be wrong but the standard so far is rubbish and Silverwood is in my view trying to get back into favour. Rubbish at Wigan now OK from a Saints view.

Finally ask yourself which organisation would pay their CEO £200k pa to have such a low profile as to be riduculed

i dont think its fixed but saints do get lucky with dubious calls, it wasn't salford getting tired it was more to do with moment being kicked out of them from bad ref calls. also any bounced balls seems to end up in a saints hands nothing fixed about that tho haha. i feel sorry for salford tonight they gave it a good crack but saints was better in the 2nd half.

Yes this sport we loved is fixed every result is decided before a ball is kicked.

Saints where outstanding second half. If every decision had gone against them they'd probably have still won that game.

They where very good (sadly)

Has there been a rule change around you playing the ball after the ref has shouted held?

Wilkin scored a try after Silverwood let Lance Hohaia go back and play the ball again rather then penalise him as I expected him to do.

And what the hell is that new rule where a defender needs to let the ball bounce over the dead ball line before collecting it or else they'll give a drop out away. Very strange.

They got a few lucky calls but you normally do when you're going forward as they were. Barstewards.

I*m sure i heard Eddie say that there is indeed a new rule in stating that you can now PTB even after the Ref has shouted held...Also the ball bouncing over the dead ball line and been carried out results in a drop out beneath the posts,,must admit,thats a strange one...

Similar to how the NRL works. The ref just usually tells them to go back and play it.

I agree in some instances as it must be tough to hear the ref and stop straight away when there's crowd noise and the like.

Yea the new dead ball rules is utterly stupid, it wasn't broken last year so no need to fix it.

The 'player not hearing the held call' did need looking at but now it's open to interpretation of ref, which mean it's going to wildly inconsistent, so that's still broken.

As for the match, nearly every infringement by saints was missed and Salford got a hard time from Silverwood; however, obviously and expectedly saints were always going to win.

The dead ball thing is stupid, the player taking it out of play is the one any ruling should be against, not a player already out of play. Is this to stop the rare occasion where the ball can be inside the field of play but the catching player puts one foot on the ground before catching, effectively bringing an out of play object in the field? If that's the case I can see the consistency with the corner flag.

In regards to the held & pass rule. Does the same ruling apply to the defenders? Are they now allowed to continue the tackle even after held being called?

The play the ball after being called held happened against Huddersfield last Sunday. We pushed them into touch after the ref shouted held, and this would have been a penalty last year. They just brought the ball back into the field and played the ball, carrying on with the count. Probably one of the best new rules introduced for a long time.

Not sure about the game being fixed, I thought saints played reasonably well 2nd half wit a fair bit of luck on their side. I've got to say though I was impressed with Salford's three quarter line!

Before a player straddling the line was classed as out of play and ball dead..now ball must touch something out of play before being touched by a player..ie advertising hoardings..touchie etc..makes defender try and run ball out rather than just putting one foot over line and getting a tap 20

I can understand the dead ball rule. The ball isn't officially in touch until it has touched either the line or bounced over the line, so it should be no different in the in-goal area.

Spot on.

in some ways the dead ball thing is correct as thats how it works on the sidelines but rls main attraction is the speed its played at and obviously that slows it down other than that it doesnt bother me because i can see the reasoning and you cant say that about the rfl very often.

Can't argue with that, Saints would probably have still won. BUT that doesn't alter how boring a game becomes when one side gets every decision and it becomes a walkover. It's such a shame to see an entertaining, competative 1st half followed by a complete bore-fest. From the people I've spoken to it seems I was in the minority in actually watching the game to its conclusion.

That said, Salford were their own worst enemy at times and it seemed like fatigue was the cause of many of their mistakes while Saints maintained their form - ATEOTD that's the difference between the best and the rest. Still, I persist in (naively) expecting more from our officials and just because Saints were bound to win, doesn't mean they get to hand them points.

case in point: I can just about forgive missing a double head high tackle on a player EXCEPT when it is replayed about 6 times as part of the VR decision!

I thought the ball was in touch if it came into contact with any object--including a player--who was in touch. That was the same for touch and TIG.

And this is how I prefer it personally.

going to make defending kicks a lot more difficult. think we will see a lot of ball being batted back in field by diving hands etc as defenders will likley not be escorting the ball out of play as they need to.

Exactly, which is the way it should be.

It has changed. It caters for the situation where the player passes the ball as the referee calls held.

But that wasn't the case last night. The ball was passed way after the held call. It should have been a penalty to Salford. Saints scored off the next play didn't they?