They are ruining the game at the moment The London try was never a try in a million years

. Season ticket holders are not turning up because of stupid kick off days and times Tonights crowd was more like 8,000 than 9,901! i'm glad Eddie has gone. the only positive thing is my stopwatch said 85 minutes and 30 seconds in total rather than over 100 minutes in some games in the past! So they are not stopping the clock every 2 minutes!

Did you go?

The video ref nearly always sides with the ref if he had said no try like he did with Hardaker it would not have been given.

Tough to see properly from the South Stand but as the ref had given a try on the field, I felt that call was the correct one. It looked like he’d got the slightest bit of downward pressure with his wrist and it wasn’t 100% clear he hadn’t.

On a separate note we’ve really pi*sed the refs off this year. We’ve been pummelled most weeks and couldn’t even catch many breaks against a side bottom of the league, with even less go forward than us (somehow) and who’d come with a plan to slow the game down.

I suppose if you show as little enthusiasm for the game as we did then that’s your reward.

As always, it's the glaring lack of consistency. Last week Hardaker's slight/accidental/just about/maybe-maybe not 'downward pressure' was deemed no try. Yet this week, when London did it, it was deemed a try. Pathetic stuff.

I'm also sick of this 'try on the field' rubbish. If the ref didn't see it, why is he allowed an influential opinion? It should be a simple case of 'I didn't see it, what does the camera tell us'.

We're going through the darkest era of refereeing that I can remember, and I remember the age of Lindop, Thompson and Eric Clay, so that's saying something.

The refs call is awful. If he has doubts he shouldn’t be guessing. Just say ‘check that I wasn’t sure’ and that’s that!

Absolutely. The fact you are sending it to the VR means you are unsure so let them use all of the technology at their disposal to get it right (as they do in RU) rather than try to disprove this that or the other. If there are no definitive angles or no actual evidence either way then by all means send it back to the referee for his decision but that is very few and far between.

The ref should send it up to the video if he isn't sure, but he shouldn't send it up with the words "I've got a try" or "I've got no try" if he sends it to the video ref then it is down to them then to make the call and the ref is out of the equation. If the video ref can see the ball being grounded (with downward pressure) then its a try simple, but the key is downward pressure and not if the little pinky grazed it. If the video ref can't see the ball or his view is completely obscured then it goes down to the ref who then makes the try/ no try call.
The decision of try / no try shouldn't be made before the video ref has had chance to review it

Worst rule currently in the game. Guessing has no place in modern sport. In fact we may as well get rid of the video ref altogether if its main purpose is to confirm a guess made by someone who clearly doesn't know what they saw. Totally bizarre rule.

I always preferred the idea of benefit of the doubt. Extended to both the London try yesterday and Hardakers non try against Cas, just assume that it is a try, send it upstairs if there is doubt and if it is not clearly no try then just get on with it. In both cases a try would have been awarded.

In the absence of a video ref though most of the tries scored in those circumstances are guesses by the referee, whether he guesses a try or no try, so by getting rid of them you are only going back to a best guess

I thought it was a try and I thought last weeks was a try with Hardaker. Both decisions have affectively been given off the refs hunch which imo should have no bearing on the decision as he clearly isn’t sure as he’s sent it to the video ref.

In my opinion the idea of giving the ref the try no try on field is to put the emphasis on who is controlling the game, ultimately if the VR can't make a definitive decision then it has to go to what the ref thinks, and in the current set up the ref gives that decision before rather than after the VR looks at it so technically it is the same outcome

I don't agree.

The current setup means that the VR's decision is not only swayed by the ref (who obviously didn't see it clearly), but that the decision has already been made, barring 100% proof that it was wrong.

This offers zero "benefit of the doubt", but also, the VR is reluctant to overturn the on-field ref's decision without overwhelming evidence (and sometimes, not even then).

I have always been of the opinion that if he didn't see it, he shouldn't offer an opinion on it.

The VR should be the sole arbiter of any "unknown" calls, with benefit of the doubt to the attacking side.

So basically, back to what we had a few years back.

See Tony Clubb at Wembley.

The BOD rule used to annoy me in the fact that if you can't see that a try has been scored then you can't give a try IMO. David Solomona at Bradford on half time in the playoffs being an example that LUCKILY didn't effect the result of the game. 4 or 5 angles and not one shows the ball being grounded but we were punished for outstanding defence.

The RU model is the one to follow for me. The referee sends it up, watches on the screen discussing it with the VR and then they come to a decision.

That is exactly the point I'm making. If it's a guess either way then the video ref is superfluous. Either give them the remit to properly use the tools at their disposal or get rid altogether and at least have the benefit of speeding the game up. To do neither is "rearranging the deckchairs."

At least we are closer to all playing under the same rules though than it being dependent on whether you are on TV or not

But in some instances it will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt if it was or wasn't a try so if we have the technology why not use it, if the VR is not sure then surely the decision has to go to the onfield ref which he has already given his opinion in advance

We do have the technology and we should use it.... correctly. Unfortunately we don't. Neither is the case that if the video ref is unsure it goes back to the ref. Again, that would be the correct way to use it but unfortunately we don't do that either. Instead we do the exact opposite by having the ref give his decision then challenge the video ref to overturn it with the proviso that "we don't really want you to contradict the on field decision anyway". Bizarre!

As it stands it's there to support the ref's decision unless there is sufficient evidence to overturn it. The problem is, as with all phrases of this nature, the word sufficient is open to interpretation. The wording (at least according to how we currently implement it) should be 'overwhelming' rather than 'sufficient'.

The phrase 'it went up as a try therefore it will be given' or similar has now become a part of the rugby league vernacular. So much so that people such as yourself think it isn't open to question. Yet common sense tells us that that is no way to arrive at a impartial decision. By its very nature it is already going to the video ref with a bias one way or the other. It defies, not only logic, but the very reason d'etre for introducing the video ref in the first place.

In the World Cup in 2017, the referee and video referee communicated with each other. I recall in the England vs Australia group match, a call was handed to Thaler (as video ref).

He started considering possible interference on a chaser and the referee told him he was happy with it and to move on. I would like to see a similar approach in Super League.

If a video referee can't tell, or its debatable, I don't see why he couldn't just say to the ref, what did you see, how confident are you? The ref could then say whether he had a good view, or was unsighted.

At the moment, we have a situation where a call can go up as a no try, say on the basis of an obstruction, yet be disallowed because of a questionable grounding, when the referee didn't ask for that to be checked on the assumption of a "no try" on field call and sufficient evidence therefore being needed that the grounding was fine.

Hang on, though; surely what people are advocating here is the system we used to have, where the ref didn't have to make a call on-field, and could send it straight to the VR. And then the complaint was that we got too many VR calls, slowing up the game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the formulation they use in RU seems the best compromise to me; we should use that. Either "Any reason I can't award the try?" or "Try or no try?"

Exactly this.

But I do think it is open to question, the ref says I think it is a try or no try he asks the VR to confirm, if he has sufficient evidence to overturn it he does, if not then the ref call stands, which makes it more fair on the non televised games, as they can only rely on the onfield decision

No. If the ref has sent it to the VR,then why send it back to the ref when he wasn't sure in the first place?

Agreed. If the on-field ref is unsure, and the VR is unsure, it should be No Try. And lets have none of this BOTD rubbish; the principle should be, both for on-field and video ref, "If you can't see it, you can't give it".