Whilst largely agreeing there are a few who see it as I see it.
It’ll get drowned out in the noise, and that's part of the trouble they have, any descenting voices against the "There's an anti Saints conspiracy" is silenced by the vociferous minority (when I say minority I mean overall, not just in that board where they certainly are a majority).

Why? Because I don't buy into the brainwashed narrative?

Honestly, you come across as an intelligent guy, so I can't believe I have to spell out how simplistic this is...

Outside of the Grand Final, Friday is about as close as it comes to a game being what you'd call "box office". If there are neutrals out there with a passing interest in RL (which there are), then this is the game they are going to watch.

It's almost too obvious to point out that the easiest and most straightforward way to convert them - is to deliver the best spectacle possible on the pitch. Having the best players out there, is the quickest route to delivering that's. It's that simple.

Literally everyone has done their job this week. Both teams have raised the bar in recent years. The fans have sold out the stadium. Those who can't get tickets are scrambling around for them and those who can't go, will probably pack out the pubs to watch it. Those incharge of the game however, have decided to put an inform player in the stands. It's madness.

Want to see how it should be handled and how there's more at stake than just immediate "justice"? Read how Vegas approaches box office attractions [urlhttps://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/7432860/floyd-mayweather-jr-avoids-jail-time-june[/url

Ban Bell for the week after. Fine him more. FFS, just let the players play on Good Friday and let's do the fixture and sport the peg up it deserves.

Saints open this week as 2 point favourites with the bookies. About right. Would swing in our favourite if Dodd/Makinson/Knowles miss out.

If anyone has one spare ticket pls message me

Have you looked at what he did? (Bell)
Nope, sorry, you don't need to

Because it doesn't matter what they've done, they could literally decapitate someone, stamp on ankles/legs and snap them and it wouldn't matter
It's best for the game that players play no matter what they've done

As per previous response on other thread, I won't be going back amd forth on this, your stance on officials, name calling etc and the way you phrase their involvement in games isn't my style.
Last week Vella was pedantic beyond belief, it spoiled the game, butnid argue he was probably right on 95% of his decisions. IMO he just needs to learn how to manage the game better because.you literally could penalise someone in wvery tackle. He needs to work at that, and ill 100% guarantee that there'll be a whole lot kore goes into making that better, as with every ref and official than you will ever know.

It'll never be perfect, it never was

What a cop out. You're basically saying the development of refs and the MRP are the single most important thing the game needs to focus on.

Did you read the article I linked too?
Nope, sorry, you don't need to.

The RFL is always right in these matters. Other sports?? Pffffft, we don't need that malarkey around here. It's RL. What will they think of next? Maximising the potential for making money, or giving a toss about the fans on the terraces. That's crazy talk.

You admit he spoiled the game, but hey it doesn't matter as he was technically right with his calls. Let's all laugh at the mugs who sat in the freezing cold watching it. It's all about him at the end of the day. The mugs will keep turning up and the even bigger mugs will keep defending us.

You're enabling of the RFL and the refs helps no one. All it does is lead to situations where the sport continues to decline.

That sures me thought Wigan would have been

Can't see why you would think that. Saints at home, unbeaten apart from the red card game and Wigan haven't won at your place in several years. Also, despite winning, we haven't been playing particularly well. Saints favourites although not by a lot.

Are Saints not appealing the ban? They have form recently and it's proven to be mostly successful.

Don’t think we’ve won at Saints in front of fans in about 6 years. Pretty sure it was under Wane.

Believe the RFL made the decision, heard the first, second, third, fourth and fifth appeals this afternoon, then had a phone call from Saints lawyers and are currently awaiting word on when it will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. If that fails for Saints, they’re going to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg and failing that they’re going before the Britains Got Talent judges.

That's right with the last win there played in 2020, during COVID, with no fans.

Super League and World Club Champions against a team with no trophies, Wigan must be favourites.

Got to take into account that farmers field Saints play on, it no doubt suits their plough it down the middle bore the opposition Into submission approach to the game but for Wigan "The Entertainers" of the rugby league world it certainly doesn't do us any favours

Bell lost his appeal and Asiata won his, they seem a tad upset over the lump

Easy win for Wigan by 12-16 points

Absolute joke that

All Wigan/Saints banter aside the Asiata decision is beyond baffling, I know he’s out for a long while so any ban would’ve been irrelevant but how he’s got away with diving in like that is staggering

Because first contact is above the knee I thought they would find it hard to uphold the charge. Still reckless though

Not sure what they expected with Bell. It looked like a potential hip drop which needs to be outlawed as much as possible so the game avoids injuries such as Coopers last year.

And yet they don’t seem concerned at all about stamping out a clearly dangerous technique that caused 3 injuries (2 long term) in the same game and that es players off every time it’s used. Weird

Grown men thinking there’s a conspiracy in the RFL wanting one rugby league team to beat another rugby league team is absolutely embarrassing.

The hate peddled on there is just bizarre.

There is no conspiracy against Saints obviously but it's the lack of consistency that winds me up. I think the Bell one is harsh personally but I can see why they've given it because his feet came off the floor temporarily. I still think you will see 5 of those a game that go unpunished though.

However the Asiata one really baffles me and I'm far more aggrieved with that one than the Bell one. We all saw what he did to Paasi last year and we all saw how reckless his technique was. At the time there was no law against it so we had to suck it up. The RFL then go and change the rules and bring in a charge relating to reckless contact with lower limbs when there is no control and no wrapping of the arms. Asiata then does the exact same technique but because he's got lucky and made contact slightly above the knee they've bottled it. For me he should have 100% been found guilty of reckless contact, because that's clearly what it is. If he carries on then someone else will be out for 6, 9, 12 months with a knee blown to pieces.

They parp on about player welfare but they are giving this guy licence to keep doing it and taking the chance that when he flings all 18 stone at someone's leg with absolutely no control, that he will get lucky and miss the knee. It's crazy behaviour from the player but even crazier from an awarding body so hell bent on sanitising the game in the name of player welfare, to let him off with this technique again.

Appealing Bell's ban was a shot to nothing from Saints I think. Unfortunate incident but they were never going to get that overturned.

It makes our job easier on Friday as Bell is a cracking attacking player and makes them tick when he comes on at loose. However, I've still got a feeling they'll turn us over unfortunately, Saints will want to lay a marker down that they're not quite done yet.

It's a cast iron certainty that Saints will come flying out of the blocks in the first set and try to swarm us. I'd say we need to win the toss and kick off to them and fight fire with fire, try to force an error.

You can usually get a feel for these derby games in the first couple of sets, we need to get off to a high tempo start and stay error free!