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The Yonner wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm In my opinion this refs decision was perfectly rational, and has nothing to do with Robert Hicks' competence or lack thereof!

Why do I think that?

Because what we just saw was the logical outcome of rugby league selling its soul to the television sport industry in the early 1990s.

What did Sky expect in return for supposedly saving rugby league from (never proven) impending economic doom?

Complete subservience in terms of switching dates and times to suit their schedules in the first place, which was to be expected, after all the BBC had been messing us about for years.

But it wasn't long before the piper called the tune like never before with the rule changes, all of which were designed to increase the quantity of try scoring opportunities, and so the theory goes, to make the game a more exciting spectacle on the television screens.

Not unreasonable you might think, what with all those state of the art cameras and fancy editing capabilities, how could Sky be expected to be satisfied with boring encounters like Wigan v Manly when no tries might be scored at all?

So then we had the offside rule changes to make both teams retire 10 metres from the play the ball instead of 5, which increased scoring massively, notwithstanding the move forcing all teams to adopt the same predictable style of play and a diminished role for creative players such as Andy Gregory.

But Sky were still not satisfied with their satellite subscription sales, so came up with another wizard wheeze in the form of the video referee!

Now they had their tele-visual utopia!

Because it's not lots of replays of tries they want to bring to entertain their viewers - it's DISALLOWED tries!

Disallowed tries are what - they think - creates excitement, controversy and subscriptions.

So referees, in my view, are not bent, or even incompetent (generally speaking).

However they submissively supply their masters - the television producers - with their every desire.

That's why we have otherwise competent and honest referees leaving no stone unturned to disallow a try - it makes perfect sense.

Ooh I do feel better after getting that off my chest!

The Yonner wrote:In my opinion this refs decision was perfectly rational, and has nothing to do with Robert Hicks' competence or lack thereof!

Why do I think that?

Because what we just saw was the logical outcome of rugby league selling its soul to the television sport industry in the early 1990s.

What did Sky expect in return for supposedly saving rugby league from (never proven) impending economic doom?

Complete subservience in terms of switching dates and times to suit their schedules in the first place, which was to be expected, after all the BBC had been messing us about for years.

But it wasn't long before the piper called the tune like never before with the rule changes, all of which were designed to increase the quantity of try scoring opportunities, and so the theory goes, to make the game a more exciting spectacle on the television screens.

Not unreasonable you might think, what with all those state of the art cameras and fancy editing capabilities, how could Sky be expected to be satisfied with boring encounters like Wigan v Manly when no tries might be scored at all?

So then we had the offside rule changes to make both teams retire 10 metres from the play the ball instead of 5, which increased scoring massively, notwithstanding the move forcing all teams to adopt the same predictable style of play and a diminished role for creative players such as Andy Gregory.

But Sky were still not satisfied with their satellite subscription sales, so came up with another wizard wheeze in the form of the video referee!

Now they had their tele-visual utopia!

Because it's not lots of replays of tries they want to bring to entertain their viewers - it's DISALLOWED tries!

Disallowed tries are what - they think - creates excitement, controversy and subscriptions.

So referees, in my view, are not bent, or even incompetent (generally speaking).

However they submissively supply their masters - the television producers - with their every desire.

That's why we have otherwise competent and honest referees leaving no stone unturned to disallow a try - it makes perfect sense.

Ooh I do feel better after getting that off my chest!

The Yonner wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 8:03 pm Mike

As other posters have suggested - he gave the Sarginson try because he had just been slammed by the pundits for disallowing the first one.

I'm not saying they want to disallow EVERY try, but doing it for a substantial portion of them fits the agenda.

And the BBC are just aping Sky's style, trying to play catch up after falling behind technology-wise.

My original post is a little over the top, but now I've calmed down a bit, I still feel we are in danger of losing the principle of the benefit of the doubt being given to the try scorer.

In the case of the Sarginson disallowed try, surely if it took five replays before the VR decided he knew what his OPINION was, that suggests he couldn't be sure beyond reasonable doubt - or even on the balance of probabilities. So how can the on-field decision be reversed in such circumstances?

SJ wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 10:07 am Looked in my book of Rules 1972 ewFallowfield edition Seems I owe Mr Hicks an. Apology secttion10 para2 covers accidental knock on If Tommy touched the ball then VR was right to disallow try.
Rule on accidental ko's needs clarification tho'. Sorry Mr Hicks!