One thing is for certain. That was some massive effort vs saints and a much improved performance. The defence especially was agressive and seemed to be more composed. Saints were not short of any class or effort and we really stood up to them. People will say they played poor but we made them play that way.

I want to give big raps to Croft in particular. I haven’t been overly impressed with him but yesterday he was very good in the centre. Gaskell also was very good.

I don’t believe after that you can doubt the players do want to win. They deserve our support to get out of this hole after what must have hit them hard. They should take a lot of positives from that as we were facing the best team in SL and was the better team. More of the same and we will be picking up some wins.

Let’s be Frank and honest here , they won by default ,if Lomax’s fumble wasn’t a knock on I’ll show my arris , a dead cert everyday of the week .Apart from yesterday I’ve yet to see one not given . But we had our own chances well before that to grab the one point and it came back to bite us .

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned the Lomax fumble,
Knock on all day long for me.

I have been confused by some knock-ons being given when the ball goes backwards from failed receiving of kick offs. Something to do with lack of full control of the ball a bit like failing to hold a catch at cricket for sufficient time. Any one aware of the written rule?

If the ball goes backwards it isn’t a knock on.

It’s frustrating though as some refs give them even if they do go backwards. It’s the lack of consistency that causes the confusion.

Lomax has to turn round to recover the ball before passing to Welsby. No way was it a knock on in my opinion….however I’ve seen them given.

What is the ruling if the ball is knocked backwards and then rolls forward, for the same player to gather it?

Play on I believe plus sometimes a player appears to hit the ball behind him but it is actually propelled forward whilst never passing the player.

I think Thaler was a little reluctant to give a few incidents in our favour in case it looked somewhat partisan towards his hometown club. The Lomax knock on and the charge down decision that went against us in particular.

So do you think it was a full strength Saints side ?
They had 6 or 7 major players missing which brought them to below our standard ,this was a game we should have been winning,never mind I think we will beat Cas on Friday they literally have no fullback or half back,looks like Eden will have to play 6 and Gary Gary fullback also no centres as I've just read that Mamo is banned

I’ve watched it back a few times and to be honest.Ball hits him going backwards and clearly lands behind both feet. Not sure how the ref could see that given his angle unless the call came from the TJ.

For me on reviewing it it was a 50 50 knock on but the nfl block by lees on dave should by the letter of the law have been a penslty

If we had won all the games we should have won because fans come on saying they have got weekend team out we would be top of the league We have had a weaken team out for most of the season .Trouble is we got so used to it I do not think there is a Wakefield fan who can name our so called first choice 13 never mind our 17

Just watched it back again, it definitely goes backwards, albeit not by much. I just looked at where his feet were and the ball landed behind where they were planted when he first tried to catch the ball. Correct decision for me, spawny gets

What wasn't correct, and was missed by the officials, was Saints having 3 people at the play-the-ball, one of whom manhandles and blocks Fifita when he tries to chase from marker.

Some you win, some you lose, eh?

No one ever gets to complain about this, owing to the full on NFL line Castleford had in front of Gale in the 2017 semi final, full on tackling Knowles to stop any charge down. If it wasn’t penalised then, it’s never going to be penalised (and the Saints players were stood still so by the letter of the law, perfectly legal).

Not sure what you mean by this??

You cannot interfere with a marker. The Sts player grabbed and impeded Fifita.

So Saints can stand as many people around the play the ball as they like, as long as they’re onside, which in this case Lees was (at least from the angle the highlights were taken from). Whilst you’re correct in saying you can’t tackle a defender, the interpretation (rightly or wrongly as per my original post) is that Fifita moves into Lees, who then stands his ground, which he’s perfectly entitled to do. There’s some interesting subtleties in that when knocked back Fifita also hits Bell, who played the ball, but again, Bell can’t just disappear.

I definitely do think there have been lots of examples of this interpretation being misused for the benefit of the attacking team, (as given in the original post, Castleford full on tackled the on rushing Saints defence) but I don’t think this is an example out of the ordinary for it. Sadly we are seeing teams eke advantages with every rule they can, sheparding kick chasers, and the 6 again rule seem to be the Wild West at the moment, and it’s true to a certain extent with this interpretation too, but that’s a much bigger conversation on the state of refereeing in general.

I think we [icould[/i name them, but seeing them on the field would be a different matter!

We never got to see our first choice three quarters. Although at the start of the season, this probably wouldn't have included Hall or Murphy and these 2 have been excellent throughout the season, a real plus for the longer term.
Although Lineham didn't work out, to have had Johnstone, Tupou, Lyne and Lineham (or Murphy), for a decent part of the season, would certainly have seen us with a few more "W's" and in a better place in the league.

Such is life



The plus side is that we have two cracking young players with plenty of SL experience and let's hope they are playing in SL for Trin next season

Think the nearest we have got to putting out a first choice team was against Wires away Then we were without T J ,big Dave, Tupou, + the Chester signings that were supposed in to strengthen the first team .If you look now at what the team is now .You can see why we got problems .

Was a knock on. The player was moving forwards when he fumbled the ball and so some of his forward momentum would have taken the ball forwards. The momentum from the pass was bigger and so the ball was bound to land behind him- but he certainly affected the trajectory of that ball. Should never have been given . But it was so, nothing you can do about it now. Jorge out for the season- oh dear. - a player who has a poor injury record and has been out for two years expecting him to stay fit was always a gamble.
Guess luck isn’t on your side.

Ridiculous comment even for you. A broken arm has zero to do with fitness, give your head a shake troll.

It landed on the pitch behind where he touched it, ergo not a knock on.
Knocks on are relative to the field, forward passes are relative to the passer.

Correct call, there was no knock on. You do sometimes see them given but that the same with many rules. Sadly for us the ref got this one right.

Your Yorkshire puddings are burning