England v Australia - Spoiler

[cpwigan]

Today for me was so different to many eras previously though. If we played Aus best of 3 (same squads) then I think we could beat them 2 out of 3 whereas in the past 1 out of 3 was a shock and often a freakish game.

Aus dubious officiating is nothing new either. Whenever we have been dominant it has happened. I cannot recall if it was 58 or 62 when we had won 2 tests and the Aussies were facing a 3-0 whitewash which was never allowed to happen owing to an Aus referee who besides the obvious lopsided penalties / rulings famously told the Aus kickr he had lined up his conversion kick incorrectly and told him to adjust it before he went on to successfully kick the goal.

[Wiganer Ted]

This has been going on for decades and is really holding the game back.The RFL have been compliant for decades.
Trouble for me is that I think it should be neutral refs for all matches including SL fixtures. I've never thought that Ganson should ever have been in charge of a Saints game whether or not he ref'd them well.
We can't argue for neutral refs in Intls when we have "home" refs in Super League.

[cow yeds]

Top & bottom of it..........we've been shafted.

[phild1]

We were cheated, but it comes as no surprise with a Aussie as the video referee in addition to a Aussie referee on the field.

As for the try, you can bet that if it had been the other way, it would have been a try.

No wonder supporters no longer show the same interest in International Rugby League, especially games between ourselves and Australia.

= phild_little wonder as we all know the outcome :sly:

[OAMJSONA]

ok so we have all settled down now

Yes any other game Halls try would have been given but lets get it right

The Aussie possession in the 2nd half was way in advance from ours and you cannot win games without possession

Overall i actually thought the Aussie ref did quite well

but can we beat New Zealand by enough points only time will tell

[ddtftf]

if we reach the final we should insist that we have Bentham as the match official, it would be hard for the Australians to object wouldn't it. We would see how much balls our officials have then.

[Fujiman]

My initial reaction at the time was that no try was the correct call. Having seen it again several times since then I still think it was the correct call.

Still images are misleading. It's one of the reasons why I'm not particularly keen on the way video refs use them so much. It's almost impossible to tell exactly when a hand is just about to touch the ball, or is already touching the ball or is just over the ball because the images are always distorted.

In slow motion, it doesn't look like he gets any downward pressure. His little finger appears to make the lightest of contact but the back end of the ball bounces up as he's supposedly exerting downward pressure, which means he hasn't exerted downward pressure at all.

There's no blame attached the ref or video ref. The ref was never going to be able to call that a try at full speed. He did the right thing in referring it to the video ref to check the restart. The video ref wasn't asked to check whether it's a try or no try.
In that situation you'd imagine it's the same scenario as handing it upstairs with the call of 'no try'. With the ref not making the on field call of 'try' the video ref basically has to see if there is any conclusive evidence that 'no try' is the wrong call. He couldn't do that based on the images, it couldn't possibly have been conclusive, so it had to be no try.

I thought halls non reaction said it all :conf:

[Wiganer Ted]

If it had been Australia needing that touch down to win the game it would have been given.
The Aussies knew it was a win or out of the comp game so they fixed up their refs to make sure whatever decisions needed to be made to ensure an Aussie win were made.
Penalty count in the first half was pretty even which led to England leading at half time.
One pen in the second half to the Aussies five and they go ahead. Strange that!
I said on here once we knew there was an Aussie ref in a game where the Aussies must win left our lads with two chances of winning - fat chance and no chance!

[Owd Codger]

On the BBC highlights, Paul Sculthorpe said the Aussie's speeded up their game in the second half, but never said anything about us not being allowed allowed to do likewise due to the Referee allowing the Aussie's to get away with slowing us down with constant lying on in the tackle.

As for the try by Inglis, there was blatant obstuction in the build up and should never have been allowed.

We were stitched up yet again by the Australians and a great deal of the blame rests with Jon Sharpe and the RFL for agreeing to non neutral Referee's and allowing them again to have all their own way.

[Welski]

My initial reaction at the time was that no try was the correct call. Having seen it again several times since then I still think it was the correct call.

Still images are misleading. It's one of the reasons why I'm not particularly keen on the way video refs use them so much. It's almost impossible to tell exactly when a hand is just about to touch the ball, or is already touching the ball or is just over the ball because the images are always distorted.

In slow motion, it doesn't look like he gets any downward pressure. His little finger appears to make the lightest of contact but the back end of the ball bounces up as he's supposedly exerting downward pressure, which means he hasn't exerted downward pressure at all.

There's no blame attached the ref or video ref. The ref was never going to be able to call that a try at full speed. He did the right thing in referring it to the video ref to check the restart. The video ref wasn't asked to check whether it's a try or no try.
In that situation you'd imagine it's the same scenario as handing it upstairs with the call of 'no try'. With the ref not making the on field call of 'try' the video ref basically has to see if there is any conclusive evidence that 'no try' is the wrong call. He couldn't do that based on the images, it couldn't possibly have been conclusive, so it had to be no try.

I thought halls non reaction said it all :conf:

Thought I read that Hall said he knew he had touched it but wasn't sure if it was on the ground at the time and his immediate thought was that possession from the drop out was crucial.

Personally I'm fed up with so many RL matches being apparently steered by the ref. (As a Wigan fan it appears to happen a lot but I'm sure other supporters have noticed it) It appears to go on in SL and the whole switching to Aussie Refs and the way this game was run simply undermines the sport. I get the feeling this was just Aussie pride but in other games I wonder if there isn't a bit of Fake Sheik going on.