Either get rid or turn us into American football with a stoppage every few minutes!

They need to sort out the obstruction rubbish and that will cut the problem right down.

just ref it to the letter of the law and have no circumstantial decision like "its going 20 meters away from the incedient" as its still an advantage to the attacking team even if its not effected a certain defender. Also they need to draw a line and every fan needs to understand that from the point they do this that this is the rule now and a week or a year ago does not matter.

Not sure what you mean by this. 20 metres away from the incident.....? Do you mean obstruction 20 metres away from where the try was scored or obstruction 20 metres away from the ball carrier?

They already have simplified it, the problem is many fans and commentators still don't understand it.

The attacking side has to do 2 things.

1. The summer runner must either go through a hole and make no contact or run to the inside shoulder therefore not preventing the defender from sliding.

2. The player receiving the ball must not run behind the dummy runner with the ball, ie the run and pass must be times so the receiver catches it on the outside shoulder.

With The tries not allowed at Salford the first condition was not met as the dummy runner made contact with the outside shoulder if the defender hence preventing him from sliding.

I don't think it can be simplified any further.

Exactly. They've brought in a new interpretation to the rule that they thought would solve some issues and all it's done is create a heap more.

Obstruction is obstruction to me. If you impend an opposition defender from making a tackle then that's obstruction, not this whole catching the ball on the outside of a lead runner. The first three try's against Salford were fine and all got ruled out.

Outside of that farce the use of the video ref is pretty good IMO.

Imagine the premier league if they could see if it was a penalty or the player dived decision and only on sky televised games they had video technology! and and all other games had NO technology there would be uproar! rugby league at the moment is the biggest disaster at the moment.

IMO the problem is that fans just don't seem to understand the rules. The three that went to the video ref were all rightfully denied, I for one called no try before the decision came up on the screen. It doesn't help that plenty of people will just boo and shout abuse at the officials regardless of whether they are right or wrong.

The problem is the inconsistency. You could run 4 exact same plays from a 20m restart and there would be no issue, then score off the last one and it goes to the screen and gets chalked off. If we're going to have a frame-by-frame level of scrutiny with these sorts of plays, with a black and white ruling of if it's caught even a few inches behind your own player = obstruction, then we definitely need VRs at every game.

I think there needs to be a "did the obstruction directly prevent the defender from making the tackle" addition to the rule. The current interpretation rewards poor defending and punishes good attacking play. You may as well just ban dummy runners (if the game is on Sky anyway).

First paragraph - I agree obstruction is far more likely to be picked up on plays that lead to tries at televised games. However, that's only the same with loads of other rules, offside, knock on and touch for instance, we don't complain about them being picked up more accurately when the game is on tv. Ideally I'd like video refs at all games, but there's loads of other things I'd sooner spend the money on.

Second paragraph - That is the rule, you can run behind your own players all day if you aren't preventing defenders from tackling you.

Isn't it the issue that they're calling "no try" when the obstruction is a mile away from the play and doesn't actually prevent any defence from reaching the ball carrier? At least that's what I saw on the tiny bit I watched on the BBC the other night.

The Hampshire, Sarginson and Meli tries would all have been given if the Salford game wasn't on tele. Touch, grounding, offside are a lot more black and white, some will get missed at non TV games but they generally don't need the same level of scrutiny to form the decision. If VRs aren't implemented at every game, then I think obstruction needs to become an on the field decision only.

One possible solution is that you can't go to the video ref for obstruction and the on field officials have to make a decision on the run of play, not unlike forward passes. Like all such decisions they'll get some right and some wrong but at least it would need to be a clear obstruction (rather than what seems to be becoming more and more a technical infringement) to be called and it would certainly prevent the endless shots of two blokes in suits watching a big screen. 12 minutes 'extra time' in one half alone has gone beyond a joke!

That a try has been scored 20 meters away from the crossing or obstruction. Brian Carney is a nightmare for saying just get on with it been passed 3 times since the obstruction or crossing.

Rule is:

Don't run behind your own player (crossing)

catch the ball on the outside shoulder and the dummy runner has to get through the defensive line by running at the inside shoulder of the defender. (obstruction)

To me its fairly simple and the only people who are being inconsistent is the fans who all have a different understanding of the rules or they try and compare it to incidents from 2 seasons ago.

If you catch the ball on the outside shoulder it cannot be obstruction! It's simple and straightforward.

They go to the video ref for the brough kick out on the full but not the Giants self made - Wigan knock on. Consistency please ref, that self made knock on changed that half

Exactly what I was going to post. Gamechanger that knock on decision but still soft defence from us.

Some absolutely shocking decisions by the officials tonight. Dear oh dear.

The Bowen try should have been a 8 pointer, he had his head ripped off in the act of scoring. The boys have gone now

I was at the Hudds game so I am probably not in the best place to comment but Found the inconsistency surrounding the use of the video ref worrying. When there is clear foul play I always thought that the ref could look at the screen. When a Wigan man was tackled without the ball, and probably taken above horizontal, I expected the ref to have a look but instead Mr Thaler stood with his back to the screen. This was different to what happened to us last weekend. Mr Thaler may have already seen another infringement but I thought that foul play always trumped a technical infringement. Later in the game Mr Thaler could be clearly seen watching the screen for another off the ball incident.
Similarly we were penalised for obstruction when defending a kick but a Huddersfield defender, just a few minutes after, was able to do the same thing without censure. I know that it is difficult to compare incidents but running across the defender and then turning so that you can back into the attacker seems pretty much premeditated. As for crossing/obstruction, both teams would have been pulled up frequently tonight if the same standards were being applied as just last week.

The first disallowed try for supposed obstruction was one of the most baffling I have ever witnessed. How can it possibly be obstruction if you don't cross??? The problem was Huddersfield defenders had rushed out into the attacking line and found themselves blocked in a sideways route. That's a bad defensive read! If they'd gone for the right man they'd have had a clear route to him!

There are more kinds of obstruction than crossing. We had 2 players in their defensive line, a defender was prevented from having the opportunity of making the tackle. Me may not have been able to get there but under the current interpretation the penalty was the correct decision.

So he can't run behind his own player, he can't run in a direct line, what was he supposed to do? Stand still and take the tackle?

To be fair we didn't get the rub of the green with the decisions and the officials did sort of ringroad them into the game.

However after that we were second best for a long, long period so we cant have too many complaints.

One of them days that's probably best to just draw a line under and move on etc.

Watch It again. SOL was stood still in their defensive line, he's not allowed to do that so in that case a penalty was the correct decision.

Overall we didn't get the rub if the green from the referee. A few poor decisions certainly helped them back into the gam but that one was correct.