It cannot be every referee

[ian.birchall]

who has it in for Wigan. Week after week, whoever is refereeing, Wigan get stung with penalty after penalty. Lets shock everybody and play without giving away senseless penalties away, time after time, on the 5th tackle or on the opponents goal line after a raking O'Loughlin kick. In the playoffs, we might even win, we will certainly surprise the opposition who might not know how to get up our end of the field. :exc:

[Welski]

I'm with you Ian. I cannot understand what it is with us and the refs. My other half laughs at the amount of times I come stomping out of the living room at the end of the game shouting that the "F-ing Ref was biased".

They cant ALL hate us... can they? Maybe I'm just looking at the decisions through rose tinted specs but the amont of mindless penalties(and great attacking positions) we give away is bewildering.

[robjoenz]

I think it's just a poor standard of refeering on the whole, not just against us. Against Hull at the KC it seemed the ref was on their side especially the video referee giving McMenemy's try when he didn't appear to down the ball. Lately they have been complaining that they video referee has been against them, not giving attacking bias on 50/50 decisions. Then there's Huddersfield always complaining of a high penalty count and being victimised so it's not just us.

I do think that cherry tinted specs has summut to do with it too. The amount of times I shout 'stop whinging' at the opposition fans when if it was one of our players on the end of Hock's forearm I'd not be happy either.

[GeoffN]

Hmmmm. Most 'neutral'games I watch, the ref seems to favour one side - I thought he was biased towards Cas in their game against salford, for example.
it quite often happens, though, that neutral commentators (no, Not Eddie&Stevo!!) like Cullen, Noble and even McCrae notice the same things we do, so I don't think it's us being 'one-eyed'
I suspect Stuart Cummings has something to do with it. he's always admitted privately that he hates us.

Conspiracy theory? even paranoids have enemies!

[the grinch]

most refs just make decisions in a split second so they are bound to make mistakes. the video ref is getting more and more eratic!you see a slow motion play back ten times and he still comes up with the wrong decision. and here is another bug bear of mine why cant the video ref look at forward passes? some times you can see your going to have a bad game with a ref when he keeps giving penalties for not playing the ball properly! they will start giving them for feeding the scrum next!if a ref is total rubbish to both teams for the entire game i can live with that!

[GeoffN]

Yes, Grinch, I don't think anyone expects them to get every single decision right, but as long as the errors are evenly split between both sides, it shouldn't really matter.
When one side (and I'm not saying it's just Wigan) get more bad decisions than the other it spoils the game.

[mario]

the grinch posted:
most refs just make decisions in a split second so they are bound to make mistakes. the video ref is getting more and more eratic!you see a slow motion play back ten times and he still comes up with the wrong decision. and here is another bug bear of mine why cant the video ref look at forward passes? some times you can see your going to have a bad game with a ref when he keeps giving penalties for not playing the ball properly! they will start giving them for feeding the scrum next!if a ref is total rubbish to both teams for the entire game i can live with that!

I wrote to Greg Mccallum a few years ago asking him what the difference between going to the video for a forward pass and an offside decision, stating that surely if you can decide offside, then a forward pass can be seen. He just dismissed the question and arrogantly said you can judge an offside and not a forward pass!

[GeoffN]

They can use the screen for knock-ons, the only difference from a forward pass being whether it hits the ground (or another player); they still have to judge if it's gone forward.
In theory, if a suspected forward pass hits the ground, and is then picked up for a try, the screen could be used - if the same pass doesn't hit the ground, the screen can't be used.
:conf:

[the grinch]

like i said if the ref is total rubbish to both teams i can live with it.but when you see a forward pass and the ref says its momentum? i say was it forward or not! the video ref at the challenge this year did not give any decisions to the attaking team when he cancelled out our try's and to later find he was an ex player for stains really rubbed salt in the wounds.but every decision a ref makes is going to upset someone.

[robjoenz]

the grinch posted:
when you see a forward pass and the ref says its momentum?

It's just Stevo that made that rule up, if it's forward it's forward, main problem is now that officials bottle it. Recently they've noticed a few obvious forward passes from us though!