Well here we are at the business end of the season with a playoff game at home to york in front of the premier sports cameras. Playoff rugby tends to be more intense then what you see during the regular season so i would expect this to be a tough game. Based on what i have seen of york this season including there 2 games with us i think we will be too strong for them across the park and come out winners 30-10.

Jack Smith in the middle for this one.
Pretty inept performance at Widnes and as he is offside happy we’ll have to watch that area in particular along with a squeaky clean play the ball.

I apologize if I am wrong, but keeping onside and play the ball correctly, are they not basics?

I agree totally about playing the ball correctly but the offsides are given at the ref's whim. Even with the ptb once in the Widnes game Smith penalised Fax, I forget which player, when it was clear a defender was all over the Fax player. That's just basic refereeing but we do seem to lose a lot of 50/50 calls. I know we are all biased but we just need the rub of the green now and then. As for the York game I think we have proved over the season and in the two games against them this year that we are the better team. Keep the mistakes down and yes, the penalties, and we should run out comfortable winners. Fax 32v14 York. Up The Fax!

Hudd-Shay, I only see the view from Fax tv and the one camera angle so have to rely on that, it does seem referees in the main are whimsical about play the ball, does not matter which level of rugby you watch, players do get lazy, not playing with the foot but lifting the leg and pushing the ball through, opposing players do always try to slow the game down by laying on or turning the man on his back, agree needs more consistency,. Saying that the players know what certain refs are like and should be able to adapt accordingly.

Absolutely right about the basics but some refs seem to be keener on policing certain areas of the game and where Jack Smith is concerned offside is one of these, we get pinged more for being offside when he is in the middle than any other ref.
Against Widnes we got penalised at the ptb on several occasions for not playing it correctly and if we aren't doing so this leads to the pressure being unnecessarily put on ourselves instead of the opposition and giving penalties away when in possession is a coach killer and needs to be addressed.

On the other hand you can see identical ptb incidents that can go either way, one call will be penalty attack for interference another call will be penalty defence for incorrect play the ball.

The incident mentioned by Hudds is one example.
On the first play a yard from their line Arundel tries to play the ball and as he bends down to do so Craven and another push towards him rocking him slightly backwards which causes him to pause, steadies himself and before he gets chance to play it he gets penalise.

It’ seems there’s always one, earlier in the season it was any head contact and you were off which has now balanced out a bit,getting the ruck and ptb right still seems to be alluding the officials and remains as this seasons inconsistent annoying rule of the year.

Just putting forward an alternative point of view...I think the refs have actually been a bit more consistent than is being suggested in terms of those play-the-ball issues. If you look at the Arundel one at Widnes (the one on the Widnes line) - he is penalised for not standing up to play the ball. Yes Craven gives him a nudge but I have seen this so often this year that I think either the smarter players such as Craven have caught on, or players are generally being coached to do this ie if the player in possession puts the ball on the ground before he has regained his feet, just give him a nudge and he will fall over - this highlights to the ref that the ball carrier has started the play-the-ball movement before he has regained his feet, and the penalty correctly goes against the ball carrier. Of course this incenses the crowd, because they see a player pushed over and then have the penalty awarded against him, but it's the correct decision. In case you think I'm being biased against Fax - here's a similar incident from Fev's home game against Fax. Check out about 30 mins 20 second in...Lockwood tries to play the ball, Wood is all over him, Lockwood puts the ball down with one knee on the floor and Wood gives him a nudge, he falls over and it's Lockwood who is penalised. Incensed the Fev crowd, but correct decision. The ref? Jack Smith. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR2MC0NIfbM&t=4220s

Just putting forward an alternative point of view...I think the refs have actually been a bit more consistent than is being suggested in terms of those play-the-ball issues. If you look at the Arundel one at Widnes (the one on the Widnes line) - he is penalised for not standing up to play the ball. Yes Craven gives him a nudge but I have seen this so often this year that I think either the smarter players such as Craven have caught on, or players are generally being coached to do this ie if the player in possession puts the ball on the ground before he has regained his feet, just give him a nudge and he will fall over - this highlights to the ref that the ball carrier has started the play-the-ball movement before he has regained his feet, and the penalty correctly goes against the ball carrier. Of course this incenses the crowd, because they see a player pushed over and then have the penalty awarded against him, but it's the correct decision. In case you think I'm being biased against Fax - here's a similar incident from Fev's home game against Fax. Check out about 30 mins 20 second in...Lockwood tries to play the ball, Wood is all over him, Lockwood puts the ball down with one knee on the floor and Wood gives him a nudge, he falls over and it's Lockwood who is penalised. Incensed the Fev crowd, but correct decision. The ref? Jack Smith. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR2MC0NIfbM&t=4220s

PTB and ruck issues are far more part of the game in the British game than for example the NRL where you hardly ever see it resulting in a cleaner ruck, faster ptb and faster game as a result.
That’s the place to start to fix it.
Using the Arundel incident as an example why did he not cleanly get to his feet?
Because of interference from the defensive line when trying to do so and with a full set to go had nothing to gain from trying to get what he already had, even the commentators including Widnes through and through KB said he had been harshly treated.
Once the tackle has been completed and the ref has called held / move whoever initiates contact after that should be penalised.
If it’s the attacker by moving forward of the mark it’s clear enough to see and it should be him.
If it’s the defender by pushing down or out on the player in possession then it should be him.
In both cases they are the ones causing the contact and the issues.
No doubt about the role of being coached on to exploit it like they did a season ago when deliberately passing the ball into a prone player near the ruck and geting a penalty off the back of it until the penny dropped and the opposite ruling came in and it stopped within a couple of weeks.
In any case coached or not whoever initiates the contact gets penalised.

Watch the Premier Sports footage again. It's a slow PTB because there are 3 or 4 men in the tackle, but once they have disengaged, Arundel clearly puts the ball on the ground whilst he still has one knee on the floor. That's an illegal PTB, it's not even remotely contentious, and as much as I have admired Kevin Brown's punditry this year, he's flat out wrong there.
As an aside, he's also not totally straight on to the goal line, which is also illegal..

But it’s not an aside and that 20 or 30 second period of the game is blatantly contentious.

Please follow your own advice and watch it again as a whole in the correct order instead of one small part of it out of sequence because the first offence was Widnes being yards offside at the scrum leading up to the play, the second offence was Craven being offside at the play the ball, both are penalty offences which happened before the ptb but weren’t given.

1 out of 3 in the wrong order can’t be the right decisions or end up with the right outcome and it’s the ref who was flat out wrong.

Examples of inconsistencies are, earlier in the game Arundel again gets penalised for holding onto the defenders leg whilst in possession at the ptb, fair enough yet when Fax are attacking minutes later Widnes clearly pull back a Fax players leg at the ptb, the ref see’s it but waves play on.

It’s not only happening against a Fax, Aston on 18 minutes gets tackled fairly and with barely any contact on him doesn’t regain his feet, does a flapping fish act and throws the ball away at the ptb but gets the penalty.

Whilst you’re looking back read my first post which clearly stated that against Widnes we were penalised for not playing the ball correctly on several occasions whilst in possession and it needed fixing for tomorrow’s game because Smith would see it along with the offsides, at no point did I say we shouldn’t have been.