ccs wrote:I always thought that the defending side could not move forward from the 10 metre mark until the ball hand been played (heeled) backwards.
Nothing to do with how fit the defending side might be or how slow the play the ball might be.

carl_spackler wrote:It's commonly accepted that the officiating is pretty poor, and I think that's accurate. I think where inaccuracy kicks in is how much fans think it is weighted against their team.

I didn't think we were particularly on the bad end of a refereeing performance on Friday, in all honesty. A couple of mistakes made for/against each team, that's about it. The fact that one of those mistakes led to a try for them but not vice versa is partly chance, partly that we weren't/aren't clinical enough when given the ball from 20 yards out. We had a chance that we shouldn't have had, as did they. That we didn't take advantage and they did is not the officials working against us.

The perception of everyone always being offside against us often comes from our slow work at the ptb, IMO. Even the actual act of playing the ball, watch how we are slower than most other sides, and then our passing is often slower, too. These seemingly small things add up to extra yards teams can move up in defence with good line speed. You can also add in that we seem to run back into the more highly populated ruck areas more than most other team as well. On Friday, the fact that Widnes clearly looked fresher than us at the start of the game created a bit of an illusion that they were constantly a mile offside IMO. Actually, they most often just had more energy than us and were moving up quicker. I thought it was noticeable that it faded away as the game went on and they tired, and it wasn't just that Silverwood didn't police it in the first half but then did in the second.

Jake the Peg wrote:Add in that the man who receives the ball is invariable stood still or barely above walking pace due to poor organisation and delivery from acting half

Jake the Peg wrote:The frustrating thing for me is that if we could be a bit better in 4 or 5 key areas then we would be greatly improved as a team

carl_spackler wrote:Exactly. It's little things like these that all add up to us being woefully slow from the ptb to hitting the line, not just that we don't get up quickly enough (although we don't, either). Referees are usually as bad about the 10 for both teams, we just contribute further to help teams make more ground on us a lot of the time.

Bombed Out wrote:You're right if done correctly the defending team cannot move until the attacking player's foot touches the ball.
However every team pinches a couple of yards it just depends how lenient the ref is.

carl_spackler wrote:They can't move until contact is made with the ball. What I was saying was our actual mechanics of playing the ball from front to back and then the pass from dummy half are slow at times (more so on Friday I thought, probably hangover fatigue from Easter). Now this may only add a second or so, but in a process that only takes a few seconds in total that can be a relatively large addition leading to the defensive team making 1 or 2 yards more.

I'm not saying that offsides are perfectly policed, but I don't think they're always as bad or as one-sided as a lot of Hull fans seem to.

knockersbumpMKII wrote:As I said on the match thread well done to all & a win is a win...now I've watched the game in full and the commentators are right..
We are so desperately poor in attack, the passing is too slow, Houghton is one of the culprits and couldn't change the direction of play if he had a force 12 gale blowing in the opposite direction..Oh and did we even have any dummy runners or anyone backing up for breaks?
Yes we've had a tough schedule and our defence was pretty good for the most part but Widnes moved the ball far better than we did, had no weight in their forwards to speak of and thank god for their mistakes.
Shaul's inability to get the pass out with a 3 on 1 (Ah Van knock down) was criminal.

If we can win games playing that badly I'll take it, frankly though if we do it'll be a miracle!

hokeydokey wrote:Who won? anyone would think we had lost, Widnes moved the ball better ..and lost ! they saved 6 players for this game...and lost Fc had No Ellis, ,Sneyd,Watts,Green,Hadley,Yeaman and Whiting come of the back of a easter weekend and all fans can do is pick fault. make no mistake Widnes were offside probably all the game and Silverwood allowed it.Again Houghton gets flack for what? giving 100% .As for agreeing with the pundits these are the same pundits who said kelly was magical getting two length of the field interception tries yet Lineham did the same and he was lucky? the same pundits who had fc to lose and how Brown would be the key to a Widnes win,they were wrong . No it was not sparkling rugby but come on give the side some credit for once