One of my major bugbears in RL..

Far too often these guys run the line and never raise their flag in anger and more often than not when an incident has taken place right in front of their face.

Last night I thought they had an okay game (both dudes)!! There were a few incidents which should have clearly been picked up that weren't but on the whole they were not too slow at coming onto the pitch.

I noticed that quite a few fans closer to the pitch congratulated the touch judge fairly early on in the game from the NS and wondered whether this might have encouraged them to be more decisive.

It's fairly simple psychology that you will tend to be more supportive of something which offers you support and a lot more stubborn to those that appear threatening...
I realise that it could not be easily integrated into the match day experience but something that I did notice last night... maybe a few hardy souls would volunteer to run alongside the touch judges and offer words of encouragement.

they missed some howlers of forward passes though from outselves

That's kind of my point.. were we given the benefit of the doubt??