The Phantom Horseman wrote:Ok I watched it again. I agree that Widnes were offside at the scrum, but that's on the touch judge, not the ref. Craven wasn't offside at the PTB and I'm not sure what you are seeing there, he clearly has his foot behind the line.
But all that is kind of missing the point, it's the relentless bagging of referees that I struggle with. The modern game is really hard to officiate because coaching methods have made the ruck/play-the-ball area so competitive and messy. For instance defenders are coached to keep their hands on the ball as long as possible during the tackle and that means that refs are faced with a tricky decision over and over as to whether they have delayed the PTB or not. Once the ref has shouted held, how long is the defender allowed to keep his hand on the ball or on the tackled player before the ref penalises him - 0.2 seconds, 0.4 seconds, 0.6 seconds etc? It's going to be a judgement call every time. that's why you end up with comments on every team's forum such as the one earlier on this thread saying "we never seem to get the 50-50 calls", because there are probably about 20 or 30 of these in every game and fans remember the ones that went against them.
So when the defensive line moves yards offside before the ball clears the scrum your saying the ref can’t see it and can’t make the call, sorry I disagree and your 100% wrong about Craven, watch it again his right foot is always in front of the line, he’s offside and in the reference to decisions I never mentioned 50/50 calls all go against Fax.
Anyway and moving on.
Actually in case you missed it, the point I was making was very simple which clearly pointed out that “our” in house discipline would have to be in order for the York game as per the thread.
Namely if “we” stray even slightly offside and having given a number of penalties away when in possession last time out “we” would also have to be squeaky clean at the ptb or we would be heavily penalised again if “we” were not doing it right, it was all about us, how can that be classed as “relentless bagging of referees”?
On the bigger picture the ptb remains one of the main areas of the game where penalty calls in identical situations can go either way it’s just a fact.
The point here is, because of all the messing around clearly beyond 10th’s of a second, when watching live without the use of post game microscopic analysis and multiple replays to show whether it was the correct call or not (as per your Lockwood / Wood example) causes more frustration than almost anything else at almost every game (as it did at Featherstone that day) and consequently needs looking at.
You will never have perfection but after all it is a live sport which in that setting shouldn’t have these anomalies.
With that in mind rather than “bagging” the ref, the clubs, through disruptive ruck / ptb coaching and as a result producing these so called “smarter players” you mentioned were highlighted as part of the problem.
Trying to be proactive and positive a solution was proposed and an example of how it is currently working to a much higher standard in the NRL was provided as a model to follow.
Will it happen, very unlikely, why and this is the part I struggle with, the constant defensive denial approach and it’s all “bagging the ref” claim when’s there clearly are issues just fails to see the problem and fails to see the need for change.
