What the hell was that "Downtown" penalty...?

The ref made some shocking decisions today, which may not have switched the balance of the game, but would have changed the dynamic.

Look we were beaten by a better side we must accept that.

Loosing Tupou early created a defensive shambles down our left for 10 minutes. This was exploited heavily by Cas and cost us a 12 pts.

We also finished the last quarter with no centres and a couple of second rowers trying their best. Ok the game had gone by then but it did not help.

I agree Scott Grix although not poor has had better games.

However I still agree our halves is my main concern and if we had any money for team strengthening either this season or next, that would be a priority for investment.

Nevertheless, we still are having a good season and doing much better than many of us hoped for including myself.

Onwards and Upwards and lets hope those injuries today do not hurt us too much in the coming weeks.

Quote ="Egg Banjo"What the hell was that "Downtown" penalty...? The ref made some shocking decisions today, which may not have switched the balance of the game, but would have changed the dynamic.'" “Down town” Any player who is in front of the kicker in general play is not permitted to advance beyond the point of the previous play the- ball until the ball has gone past the off side players. This rule delays the movement of the off side players downfield in an attempt to encircle the ball receiver as he collects the ball - See more at: www.rugby-league.com/the_rfl/rul ... GPQYb.dpuf Considering that nobody was kicking the ball, and the ball passed the offside player bringing him onside, then I can't see how it could be considered "downtown". Decisions like that and Cas being allowed a 20m restart when they took the ball in-touch really changed the game dynamics

Quote ="Egg Banjo"What the hell was that "Downtown" penalty...? The ref made some shocking decisions today, which may not have switched the balance of the game, but would have changed the dynamic.'" “Down town” Any player who is in front of the kicker in general play is not permitted to advance beyond the point of the previous play the- ball until the ball has gone past the off side players. This rule delays the movement of the off side players downfield in an attempt to encircle the ball receiver as he collects the ball - See more at: www.rugby-league.com/the_rfl/rul ... GPQYb.dpuf Considering that nobody was kicking the ball, and the ball passed the offside player bringing him onside, then I can't see how it could be considered "downtown". Decisions like that and Cas being allowed a 20m restart when they took the ball in-touch really changed the game dynamics

Yeah I enjoyed it really, thought we showed a lot of character to dig in that second half. 1st half was a bit disappointing defensively but Cas come at you from all angles, hard and fast with the likes of Webster and Millington. Thought we did well shutting Gale down, but Roberts tore us a new one instead!

We'll need to improve to beat Wigan but some encouraging signs in the 2nd half for sure.

Monaghan's foot was over the line. As soon as he touches it, it is out of play on the full.

Thought they got rid of that rule?

[urlhttp://www.rugby-league.com/article/39097/five-rule-changes-to-be-introduced-in-[/url

Some very dubious decisions today, the ref had a shocking game, very inconsistent and always seemed to look for a reason to gift Cas field position. Wakey weren't good and did make too many mistakes, but when you're fighting against an official who is misinterpreting the rules then you don't stand a chance

Thought that we would have learnt our lesson from the Widnes game and playerd Finn from the strart. Ok, Cas did ease off in the second half, but we certainly looked more composed when Finn took the field.
Very disappointed with Williams particularly his tactical kicking and kicking early in the tackle count to no effect whatsoever.
Some of Kendal's decisions were a mystery. Johnstone was lifted off the ground a couple of times and dumped but nothing said.
i hope Finn starts the game on Monday and Williams on the bench.

That's open play. As in a player can't put his foot on the line on a fifth tackle kick and catch the ball. Ball has to bounce on or over the line for a tap on the 20.

This was a kick from a restart and if a player steps out and catches/touches it, it is deemed dead and out on the full do pen on halfway.

The ref was fine today.
A couple of minor decisions that TV showed up.
The ones I didn't get at the game turned out to be mostly correct in TV.

Can't moan about the ref today, it was the same one we had on Friday night!
Only difference today was that Cas knew how to use the penalties and punish us.
Stick with Finn and Williams in the halves, why have Finn and Miller?

Now I've watched it back we weren't that bad.
They hit us when Tupou was off but to be honest they were far more dominant in the first 30 than the score suggested.
The problem was that we didn't finish our sets so gave them the ball back cheaply.
The only decisions that cost us was the downtown one. Without that try we kept them scoreless in the second half which shows some real character.

I fancy another cracking at them later in the year.

I also think we could do ok against Wigan. We'll need Tupou and Arundel back though. That hurt us today. It will hurt us more on Monday.

One which should have been looked at was when Gale intentionally interfered at the PTB by pushing down hard on the bottom of Kirmo's back when he tried to stand. But as it's wonderman-Gale I'm sure it was ignored just as his constant touching of the officials is

Will watch with interest to see if Gale is in trouble for touching the referee. Suppose not he plays for Cas.

He does it multiple times in every game, never been punished for it.

Very very impressed with Cas... I've often wondered why superleague teams with full time training can't reach the speed and execution seen regularly in the NRL.... this Castleford team do it!!!

That said... it sets a benchmark which we failed to meet ... I think we can play better but we didn't play badly by our own standard. And that performance would have beaten most SL teams on the day.

Interestingly I thought Cas attacked the areas we thought were our strong points... they put pressure on our wings... and ran through, and round our big men using structure and power!

Theres a difference between a friendly tap and running into or pushing an official. I expect him to face a 1 game ban soon enough for it though. Not sure I understand your comment "Suppose not he plays for Cas".

That was exactly what I expected and predicted would happen - they're miles better than us at the moment, and it showed; I wanted to see us compete and not get blown away, and I guess we managed that in the second half.

No shame at all in losing to that Cas team - they're outstanding.

Good reply Bren2K
Waky are a decent side and will be fine this season,We are running hot at the minute and long may it continue,Top 6 for Waky

More than anything else it was speed that Cas showed today.
Not running speed. Our wings are as fast as theirs.
Speed of pass.....from every player
Speed of defense to get off their line
Speed of thought....not just the halves but the whole team seemed to sync really well in any situation.

Trying and preparation has done that.
I hope we learned from them today.

Dead right. Too often we were looking for the pass and that slowed the movement down. They knew where the next pass was going before they even got the ball.

I like the way cas play they look the best team in the competition at the moment. However our performance was poor and we didn't test them. For me it was a match that I didn't expect to win but would have liked a more even game particularly in the first half.
On an observation Cas seem to spend a lot of time gesturing to the reff for a penalty or knock on, they don't need to attempt to influence decisions.

At game was really disappointed with first half, but watching it back we played ok. No body had a bad game and thought that there were some real stand out performances - kirmond defensively had a great game, all good had his best game so far.

Their half backs were significantly better than miller and williams, but it was the sheer speed of thought and action that gave them the game. Having watched wigan saints am looking forward to monday

What we have to do is try and emulate Cas' not find excuses for why they blew us away. (first half anyway)
Why are Cas' so much faster? until we replicate what they are doing we will stay as we are.
I've said in an earlier post that Cas' are not a one man team BUT I wish we had a player with the skill, commitment and enthusiasm of Gale directing play. Last one we had like that was Danny Brough.

I think we played into their hands in the first half.
Our defensive line sat back instead of moving up, allowing Cas to move the ball right across the field (probably would have worked better had Chase been playing HB).
Selecting Williams ,Miller and Wood to all start was a major error as they are all too similar and none has any compusure or can take control of the game.
Grix had a shocker as he was trying to force high risk plays early in the tackle count.
losing our centres at different points in the game didnt help our cause either.
not sure why we moved away from our back 3 taking up the early tackles as this has been working well for us.
positives for me were Fifita and Allgood played really well and the team never gave up.

all that said, Cas are playing great rugby and are the best team in the league at the moment and are rightly top of the table. It was always going to be a tough task to beat them at Cas.