Richard Agar...

[GeoffN]

http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... _Agar.html

Agar believes that Wigan, now coached by former Melbourne assistant Michael Maguire, got away with delaying tactics during his side's 48-24 defeat at the DW Stadium last night and argues that it may be necessary to follow the Australians by using two referees in an effort to speed up the play-the-balls.

I seem to recall Hull were the ones mostly at fault last night...Why they never had a player sin-binned is beyond me.

[gpartin]

Its become the norm to say that about Wigan. Was the same with Hull last night. They hardly had the ball long enough for it to be a problem. They were terrible for holding down last night and I have criticised Wigan at times this year for pushing it too far.

[Mike]

I can't believe he's saying this, what a cheeky fella. Hull conceeded a ton of penalties for slowing the play-the-ball down. I can't believe they weren't put on a team warning and down to 12 at some point.

[gpartin]

Yeah they were very lucky, its just an half hearted excuse from the coach of a team who were destroyed. I'm going to have so much fun this week

[gpartin]

They were going pretty high a fair bit too.

[j658]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 565783.stm

Hull coach Richard Agar has mooted the idea of having two referees in Super League as the controversy over slow play-the-balls continues.

Melbourne were accused of slowing down play during their World Club Challenge win over Leeds, and Agar fears the same tactics are creeping into Super League.

"If this is the way we want our game to go, we might have to look to follow the NRL and get two referees," he said.

"We've just got to be careful that we don't drive the fans away."

Agar claims Wigan, now coached by former Storm assistant Michael Maguire, got away with delaying tactics during his side's 48-24 defeat at the DW Stadium on Friday.

"Wigan are very good at it... [but] you are finding the home fans booing the away team on anything that's a second over - and it's the same at our place," added Agar.

"It seems to becoming a focus for everybody, fans included."

Australia introduced two referees into the NRL a year ago, with one official standing in the defensive line to check offside and the other monitoring the rucks.

"The wrestle is obviously a factor," stated Agar.

"We had a couple of referees around at the start of the year looking at how we were going to manage it all and it was certainly a lot quicker than we're seeing."

St Helens forward Jon Wilkin concurred with Agar in his most recent column for BBC Sport when talking about Melbourne's tactics against Leeds.

"Melbourne spent a lot of time delaying the play-the-ball - which every team in the UK does also, by the way - to a degree that the action was almost unrecognisably slow," wrote Wilkin.

"Storm are the finest exponents in the world of committing players to a tackle, finding awkward holds and positions which inhibit the attacker from regaining his feet quickly."

[j658]

I honestly struggle to understand where he is coming from given the spoiling tactics employed by his forwards particularly Lee Radford.

It seems to me that his problem isn't the slowing down of the tackle, more that Wigan have followed the Storm tactics and are better at it than Hull.

[FROM A TO B]

Pot calling the kettle springs to mind!!!

[Salsa Caliente]

Following reading the quotes from Mr Agar at http://www.rugbyleague.com/rugby-league ... feree.html, methinks he should get his own house in order before taking on the League.

The tactics around the play the ball by Hull had the desired effect in slowing us down.

I wonder if Mr Agar will also be bothered by the "head highs" that were being employed in the second half.

:eusa16:

[mike binder]

thuggery allowed ,just dosnt like the wrestling ,even though they took longer