How can it be the right decision if you thought he wouldn’t kick it?

If we kick it in touch and drop the ball first play then wevare still better off than what happened as at least we have a set defensive line which stops saints making the 60/65m they did in that set. Well imsuppose you can call it a 100m set with scoring.

If Hardaker had kicked it which not for one second did i think he would have as he was never gonna reach then i would still be saying it was the wrong call.

3 grand finals gone now with poor game management.

I thought that

Exactly right

Lack of money? we had two specialist wingers injured, and the dream team, best player at fullback.

Now you can argue that we were unlucky to have the wingers injured, but it was nothing to with lack of money.

Because it would fit in with someones anti IL/!KR agenda?

At what point did French have the opportunity to boot the ball out - due to the freak bounce of a rugby ball I’m not sure he ever got near it

Exactly, anyone who has played the game, or even just messed about with a rugby ball, knows that sometimes it can take a weird bounce that makes it take longer to get to it. Everyone is talking about that but they all seem to miss that Leuluai and Bibby totally switch off rather than chasing back after Makinson's DG attempt. Leuluai would have comfortably beaten Welsby to that ball if he had chased back IMO. He had a 10 metre head start on him when the ball was kicked. Just a momentary lapse in concentration when he was knackered but that's the bigger error than French being beaten by a dodgy bounce IMO.

As a team we didn’t chase Hardakers penalty attempt and that have Lomax an extra 30 yards he shouldn’t have had and put Makinson in the position to have a pot shot.

I’ve not really got involved in any of the chatter around should he have gone for 2, should he not, was French at fault or not, was it a penalty on Fages or not, was Welsby offside or not because they’ll drive you mad. The game was an amazing spectacle and it summed up the phrase that ‘nobody deserved to lose’ to perfection. We didn’t get many bounces of the ball but I thought the slightly better side won.

Just a quick question that we were debating yesterday. How does the one minute rule work for taking a goal kick or penalty?

Is it one minute from the offence or one minute from when the kicker receives the ball to take the kick?

When should the referee stop the clock?

1 min 20 secs from the offence (it changed to 1 min 20 secs at the same time we brought shot clock in). It's also 1 min 20 secs for a conversion attempt now before time goes off.

Another important change that came in at the same time was that during the last 5 minutes of the game, time goes off immediately after a penalty attempt that goes out of play (whether successful or otherwise), or a conversion attempt. So if Hardaker misses and puts it out of play, time goes off immediately for the 20m drop out, potentially giving Wigan time to get in DG position. If he kicks the penalty, time goes off immediately and Saints would have some time to have a go at the short 10 kick off and resulting set.

Then that extra 20 seconds that Hardaker didn't take proved very costly!!

Told ya

Yes, I thought it was one minute, it was only when you and AJ questioned it that I thought I'd "ask the expert"

He gets a prompt at 1 minute. I suspect he probably thinks that warning is when time goes off (as it used to be) rather than just letting him know he should kick it in the next 20 seconds so the club don't get a telling off/fine. Even at SL level the players don't tend to know the rules to that level of depth.

There is no anti IL/KR agenda as you keep saying.

Just supporters giving an opinion on what they think they sometimes get wrong!

Its called free speech!

Except it isn't "sometimes" it is literally all the time.

Touche