Smiths lettign Leeds away with all sorts.
Delaney shouting at him there.

It may as well be. The loser plays knockout rugby all the way!!

I agree that they both should have been sin binned, it did seem harsh for him to get sent off. But I disagree with your coments about the occasion. It doesnt matter what game it is, the rules are rules and shouldnt be different simply because the game is more important. We all want consistency in the game, and a ref shouldnt be lenient just because of the occasion.

Get ready for the usual video referee 'TRY', which is blatently not and everybody can see its not, if saints are struggling after.

In a big game emotion and passion can get the better of you. A ref omo should calm it down first rather than dive straight in. He's still giving the penalty he's just using common sense

Good call.

It was Bailey that started it with his elbow !

How does Bailey get away with it all the time ? Are refs that dim ?

Yes.

We saw that through Child's 'efforts' last night.

Penalty should have gone to Hull with both in the bin, big mistake IMO

Notice that Eddie said Bentham was "ill" as he ( not Smith) should have been refereeing the Hull V Leeds game.

Let's hope that both he and Ganson remain unavailable for Wigan's games - I'm sure Cummings will come up with one of them as ref for a Play Off game!

Ian Smith,,,,,..Well,what more can you say?

Sadly, it was the correct decision.
Radford threw four punches whilst Bailey was on the ground and unable to defend himself. In reality Bailey should probably also been sent off, but he would argue, and probably get away with the fact, that he was just struggling to get to his feet to play the ball.

Bailey knew exactly were his elbows were hitting.

Radford got up and defended himself..then Bailey acted like the bailey we know..went to head but a scrum half and pretended he was after radford.

Radford didnt hit him hard enough.

No it wasn't. First offence was Bailey's, so the penalty should have gone to Hull, and both sin-binned for fighting.

How come Bailey wasn't summoned to RFL last Tuesday and banned for elbowing Riley in the face/head in the last tackle of the Cup Final? An incident seen by millions on BBC - he really does get away with a lot of illegal challenges/tackles.

Is that, what in legal terms, is known as a leading question?

I agree with you, Rogue. I think posters say it was the wrong decision because it weakened Hull against our arch enemies Leeds.
I think it's worked well for Wigan. We are now playing a team who struggled against 12 men for most of the game instead of playing a team which is getting all their players back at the right time. It also looks like Leeds might have picked up another couple of injuries.
It might not be this simple but stop Danny McGuire and we nullifly Leeds' main threat.

Yea i think he got it correct as well. To throw punches like that whilst on his back, deserves a red. Perhaps he could have penalised Bailey a bit more. My only frustration is the referees have been very consistent this year, consistently inconsistent.

Does anybody think we will get bentham next sunday in the middle.

Yes! Unless Cummings is saving him for the semi final.

Difficult to choose a "good" referee at the moment - Thaler seems to have been ok this season in that Wigan have won with him reffing.

You could say the same about Alibert, though!!

I do not think there are 4 refs up to it for the 4 games next week, 4 big games lets just hope the best teams win and we are not talking about refs this time next week, but I doubt it.

BRING BACK GANSON

The bit in bold makes no sense. However, Radford was provoked by this and, if the ref didn't see the elbow deserved the red. If not it should have been yellow.

I would argue, something like this should be an option for the video ref - but only where a player gets up and starts throwing punches where the ref thinks it's unprovoked. Having said that, anything that the ref sees as a red wouldn't be too bad for a review but a review where the ref can watch and the off field ref is providing advice and not the decision.

Can't recall any instance of a player simply starting to throw punches without some kind of provocation occurring first. Sometimes it may be the wrong player who ends up getting punched at (like the Fielden incident against Hudds), but there is always something else that leads up to the punches. That's why a straight red for one player and nothing for the other one is so baffling.

I'm still wondering how Wellens got away with doing exactly the same thing around 70 minutes in the game against Cas with nothing but a quick word from the ref...