Now it is tempting to think that Richard Silverwood is, in fact, Satan's apostle and master of the dark art of Super League match fixing but, much as I would have loved a few words with him at full time today, I would have to say that the modern game is too much for one man to referee, especially when you are as incompetent as Richard Silverwood, Thierry Halibut, James Child and Steve Ganson. Having watched a few Australian games on sky, I would have to say it works well and ought to be adopted here. I have a strong suspicion that Hudds last try was well forward, but to be fair to our friend in the middle, Usain Bolt would have been about the only person capable of being up with it. We need more refs in the pool as these guys have no competition and get away with murder as they seem to be the treasured few, but we also need 2 per match for me, at least at the ultra high pace of SL.

Answered your own when you said we need more refs in the pool as we aint got enough good refs let alone have 2 per match.

There are 2 touch judges to help him, that should be enough. It is pointless filling the playing area with officials.
Watched 2 or 3 Aussie matches last season where the officials got in the way of moves.

Time it was more of a priority to recruit then, because performances like RS today are not unusual and managed to tarnish a good match, yet again; and I say that watching games as a neutral as well as today. It just isn't good enough to have a great product being spoiled by such poor reffing

I thought the Grand Final was superbly officiated and with hardly a forward pass and players more on side as I suspect the players know much more is seen. Though I agree, it might not be necessary if those spare parts on the touchline were involved more

Think there's a big difference between Ganson and Alibert who are just inconsistent and Silverwood and Bentham who favour certain teams.

As I hint at above, although it seems refs are leaning one way at times, it seems improbable that they ACTUALLY are. I just think there aren't enough of them to create competetion and allow for sidelining when they have a stinker, as our man did today. 2 refs...maybe an answer, but I must admit, it is hard to understand why touch judges who MUST be seeing the same forward passes and offsides as us, aren't a more primary part of the officiating.

Two refs on the field would be like blind leading the blind.

Sounds like both of us had it rough with the officials today. 35 seconds to go, Cas 17 -17 Catalan, Hauraki driving forward 30 yards out, walloped, blatant high tackle, Child gives nothing. Hauraki (man of the match) has to leave the field, with a broken nose.

Child is indeed the worst ref in SL consistently.
Re Blind leading the blind...probably a fair point but the primary thing is SL have to WAKE UP to how bad a lot of reffing is in this country. That said, I thought Ben Thaler was superb in the Leeds Melbourne game; very few errors and kept the game flowing

Ours could have been ordered, come what may, just to make Super League XV more exciting than any other so season so far??????????????????????????????????

There is no need for another ref - just give the touchies more responsibility to help out the man in the middle; there are times when they stand there like rabbits in the headlights, knowing full well they've just witnessed a forward pass, but are too frightened to raise the flag.

No point adding more officials when we're not using the ones already out there to the full potential.

What a mouth watering prospect, Silverback in one half of the field and the demon uncle Albert in t'other half waiting to inflict more farce upon us

there are enough penalties given by one official, we dont need more.

i've thought for years that the game needs two referres, problem is there aren't enough good ones for one a game let alone two. The refereeing (and touch judges) is as bad as i've ever seen it which bearing in mind they are fulltime is a poor state of affairs.

This post from another place is spot on IMO :-

` We all know that the refs job is very very difficult. I hate that all we seem to hear from fans, coaches, media etc is about how poor a ref was, how the ref cost us the game etc etc. My starting point is that refs are going to make mistakes, forward passes for example must be very very difficult when the ref is stood in front of the play. I accept that refs will make mistakes and thats ok, we cannot expect them to be perfect. I also do not beleive that they are ` bent ` , if I thought for one second that they were then there is no point in following the sport.

I think the vast majority of the problems are caused by the holding down and not standing square ` laws `. I have watched every single SL tv game this season and watched all Wakefields games live. I watched the World Club Cup game which was managed very well by Ben Thaler, it was a great game because Thaler did not get involved with blowing up for holding down or not standing square. As a result the Leeds players soon stopped trying to milk a penalty and just got on with it, they were great to watch. Was Thaler told to ref the game like this because every other game I have watched this season has been refereed in a totaly different maner. I would say they have been spolit, because we are seeing 20 penalties for holding down or not standing square. Players are acting to get penalties, players are getting high fives and back slaps from their team mates when they win a holding down penalty. It is spoiling the game.

Refs need help, basicaly they could blow up 90 % of play of the balls if they wanted, so I say they should watch the World Cup Game and be told to let holding down go unless it is one of those very obvious situations where typically a fullback lays on a winger for 5 seconds waiting for his team mates to get back, never penalise not standing square. This would reduce the number of pens per game from 20 plus down to 5 ish. Players would stop trying to win penalties and have to play nore rugby. It would also give us more chance against the Aussies, it is very rare to see a penalty for holding down in the NRL, so they have to be creative away from the ruck area.We need our SL teams to stop relying on winning the penalty count and improve their creative Rugby skills.

Poor old Ricahrd Silverwood made a few mistakes on Sunday, and thats ok, he was doing his best, he was not biased towards one side or the other, but he did give 21 penalties, at least 15 were for holding down and not one of those would have been given by Thaler in Fridays game, or the CC final or the Grand final. These 15 penalties encouraged players to play act at the ruck and got both sets of supporters on the refs back and make the ref the focal point. Can we just play Rugby, as a fan I am not bothered if a player take 1 second or 3 seconds to play the ball, but now we get fans baying for a penalty to be given at every tackle. We also need to stop the acting halfs running directly at a marker in order to win a penalty, if the acting half decides to run at a marker who is half a yard not square, so what, he should be encouaged to pass the ball rather than win a penalty.

Lets make life easier for our refs. `

Refs will make mistakes, we all do but in order to fullfil any role in life where there's some accountability to others there also has to be an acceptable level of competency and too often we dont see that from our RL Officials.

i agree with clan all we need is some decent level of competency ,and consistancy wouldnt go a miss too, i accept refs are human and mistakes will be made but to me yesterday there was a distinct leaning towards giants on many issues, and we seem to get penalised for stuff that hudds didnt, that said we should have still won our lack of nous near the line cost us and penalties we gave away too, that all said there was alot of positives to take out of yesterdays game for us

I think that the game would be helped immeasurably, if they could coax the touch judges flags from between their clenched cheeks.

I realise that the ref and linesman are in contact throughout the game, but I don't think they do enough in terms of flagging for infringements, leaving too much pressure on the merry whistle blower who then makes bad calls.

I think this is an important point.

The new scourge of SL is watching a 16 stone, strength conditioned athlete getting to his feet after a tackle, suddenly flop on to his belly because the marker has put a hand on him; or the Tomkins special of trapping an arm, then thrashing around like someone taking a fit, pretending to be held down. Both are of course accompanied by the obligatory waving arm, pleading with the ref to award a penalty.

It's getting like ruddy football.

There is no doubt improvement is needed but I think it should start at the very top. Cumings should be the first to go
because whilst ever he is around things will never improve.

Not sure what's worse, 2 idiots on the field or 1. Time the linesmen actually did something though