RL In Danger of Becoming a Laughing-Stock

[markill]

I wasn't sure whether this threead was going to be about the two semi-finals or our premium cup competition only being on BBC 2, or the fact that less than 23,000 attended the two games combined, but no its about the referees. I would put the standard of officiating down the list on reasons for our sport to be a laughing stock. I don't know if you read newspapers or watch sky sports news on a sunday/monday each week but we aren't the only sport who has poor referee decisions to discuss.

[jobo]

I wasn't sure whether this threead was going to be about the two semi-finals or our premium cup competition only being on BBC 2, or the fact that less than 23,000 attended the two games combined, but no its about the referees. I would put the standard of officiating down the list on reasons for our sport to be a laughing stock. I don't know if you read newspapers or watch sky sports news on a sunday/monday each week but we aren't the only sport who has poor referee decisions to discuss.

Wise words. The Wire game had to play second fiddle to Scottish open golf for goodness sake. We've got the debacle surrounding Bradford and Crusaders, along with giving the naming rights to a truck company for zilch. The exiles games, the farce surrounding GF play offs, lots more to laugh at in RFL than just the refs. Probably sounds grumpy this but Rugby League for me is the worlds best sport and when you watch, as I have this season, just how good the presentation can be, viz-a-viz the NRL you just despair.

[DaveO]

Trying to be pragmatic you will always get bad decisions during big games in sport and no one is immune from this

I agree but what gets my goat is they rarely if ever acknowledge their mistakes.

By the rules the Carvell try was never a try. I don't see how any post match analysis of the incident could conclude it was.

Will Cummings or anyone at the RFL acknowledge this? Will they learn from it? I won't hold my breath.

I think people would accept the odd bad decisions if they actually thought the ref's would put their hands up and admit when they got it wrong.

How many of us grew up being told if you don't make any mistakes you will never learn anything? Well to my mind the almost pig-headed approach taken by Cummings to justify every error his officials make means that Thaler could well go on from here thinking he was actually right, that he didn't make a mistake and hence he will have learned nothing from it.

Frank Lampard in SA world cup no goal yet it was clearly over the line

And FIFA just voted to being in goal line technology to sort this kind of thing our. Meanwhile in RL the heads go firmly back into the sand.