He needs to clarify the held rule in my opinion. Fev scored from a penalty he gave when he should have called held and barker passed it and they scored when two tackles were made and he waved play on. Added to the Harris "try" and thats three tries gifted to them. He was inconsistent for both sides but he could have killed us off. This lack of consistency caused frustration and some high shots, could see fax players asking why decisions were going fev's way. I felt for them. Childs needs to be struck off the ref list in my opinion

I watched the game again once i got home and to be honest most of the decisions were right. It seemed completely different watching it live in the stadium.

Apart from the Harris try which was dodgy to say the least and came from Hicks, Childs got most of his calls right. I can't believe i'm saying that after being there but he was.

There were a few fifty fifty calls but that was it really.

The one thing i thought was that Fev were allowed to slow us down more then we were allowed to slow them down. It just seems everyne is allowed to lie on in the tackle against us.

He called held clearly and then Barker passed. The second half incident, he never called held so there isn't a problem. Play to the whistle - Barker didn't.

Billyfax - how else are we expected to slow you down

Tackling

A player in possession is tackled:
Grounded
(a) when he is held by one or more opposing players
and the ball or the hand or arm holding the ball
comes into contact with the ground.

Upright
(b) when he is held by one or more opposing players
in such a manner that he can make no further
progress and cannot part with the ball.

Succumbing
(c) when, being held by an opponent, the tackled
player makes it evident that he has succumbed to
the tackle and wishes to be released in order to
play the ball.
Hand on player

(d) when he is lying on the ground and an opponent
already grounded places a hand on him.

You could argue that it falls under (b) as he could make no more progress however

Moving tackled player
(a) Where opponents do not make a tackle effective in the quickest possible manner but attempt to push, pull or carry the player in possession, it is permissible for colleagues of the tackled player to lend their weight in order to avoid losing ground. Immediately this happens the referee should call “Held”.
(b) Where the tackled player is held in an upright position, the ball shall not be played before the referee indicates that the tackle has been effected.

So in that case the ref decided that the Halifax players joined and then called held. At which point Barker passed the ball. Tough call but was probably right.


As for the should have been tackled. He clearly didn't touch the ground with the ball carrying arm and was in a position to clearly pass the ball on. Therefore 'Play on'.

That's very harsh...the whistle went at pretty much the same time as the ball did.

Nail on head.

Its like they were saying commentary it did turn into a competition to see how much use Child could get out of his whistle but they were legitimate.

The Barker offload penalty was a farce, the sad knacker that I am, I played and paused and he says held a split second AFTER the ball leaves his hands. Also a Fev player was half a yard offside at one of the kick off (those penalties really infuriate me)

The thing was though, after he blew the whistle for everything in the first, he spent the first 15 minutes in the 2nd half letting the game flow, very confusing.

Er so he didn't disallow the try in the first few minutes for what all teams do - dummy runner???
He pinged us for offside time after time yet he did you lot ONCE all game for offside???
I watched him and he NEVER looked down the line when Fev were defebding to see if you were offisde.
So how come we were offside then Mr Ref???

You even got offisde when you had a 'try' disallowed by the video Ref he then gave you the ball back with a penalty.

Nah the guy was cr*p last night.

He called held far too late, come on that tackle was a joke, it went on and on and on, he should have called held before.
Any player would have passed like Barker did and to then get a penalty against us was a joke. We should have had a penalty for Fev carrying on pushing when the tackle had been made, it aint wrestling!

James Child ruined the natural flow of what was potentially a great match up. He set his stall out early doors to penalise anything borderline instead of seeing how play developed ( advantage, that old baby ). He is a Stuart Cummings robot who has no character, charisma or dialogue with the players during a game, the fact that he continued to warn of further offences showed his weakness, that's coaching not refereeing, penalties teach players lessons. This wasn't the first game he's ruined this season that I've watched and dread the next few times he's reffing us, common sense is required in the art of refereeing RL matches at all levels, but I fear he'll be around for a long time unfortunately.

How? The player was being moved backwards until his team mates came in. No, sorry - there's a reasonable point that Barker may have off-loaded before he heard the call, but other than that Child's decision was technically correct, as were most of his decisions.