Actually, the touch judges are the ones that should be checking for offside.

The referee's job is to patrol the ruck area.

The level of competence shown by Mr Smith today was nothing short of shocking, and I hope that when he gets to sit with the other refs and see his performance he is suitably punished by his next game being an Under 10's (no disrepect to U10's).
His management of the game was non-existant, and his decisions were tragically inept.
There are bad days at the office, and then there are performances like today, truly shocking.

Well he missed a few things, but im glad it's more free flowing compared to this time last year, when it was penalty after penalty.

Spot on

Who was the whippet of a linesman? He looked really young.

I thought the ref was poor, getting several decisions wrong.


I didn't get to see it myself, but my dad thought a couple of the Celtic players were doing 'chicken wing' tackles, or at least trying them. Anybody else notice? Or's it him just his old eyes playing tricks on him...

Yeah, a few of us noticed a couple of chicken wing tackles being made by some of the Celtic players.

yeah smith went bad to worse his second half was dire seemed like he was making it up as he went along

bad calls for both teams

I thought it was too. Was suprised that, between 5 officials, none of them saw it. Very very few calls should be wrong with 5 people officiating.

WOTT?

I have seen smith give absolutely nothing to us and everything to cas in an 18-0 defeat for us there a few years ago worst ref perfomance i have ever seen.

York 79

It was shocking, the 2 touchies and ref were both policing the offsides, i actually screamed at one of them to police the play the ball and monitor the passes at one point

Wish someone would tell the David Gallop that.

refs control forward passes nowt to do with the lino...however if a ball moves in a backwards direction and hits an opposing player and the ball goes in a forward direction how the bloody hell can it be classed as a knock on..it defies the laws of physics...ask m. gleeson in the2nd half...bloody fool

That is completely and utterly wrong. 'Linos', or 'Touch Judges' as they're otherwise known, are supposed to look for forward passes. It has plenty to do with them - when they see one, they'll stand still and hold their flag against their middrift pointing up. Doesn't mean the referee is forced to give it but more often than not they will do.

darren mapp, www.therfl.co.uk/about/disciplin ... php?id=871 got picked up for undue pressure on a shoulder.

darren mapp, www.therfl.co.uk/about/disciplin ... php?id=871 got picked up for undue pressure on a shoulder.