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What the hell were the RFL thinking in giving that game to Hicks?!?!?!?!
He is completely incompetent and ruined what should have been a great game.
Apparently, loose carries are always a strip when Lockers tackles people - No... they're not!
When a Saints player strips the ball from his own player and Lockers has made the tackle, it's a penalty - No it's not!
When Wigan players kick the ball through, the opposition are allowed to tackle them off the ball without a word being said - No they're not.
In the first half, Wigan got twice the penalties and a lot of them were questionable.
In the second half, Saints were getting everything and for their first try, Hicks just kept blowing the whistle until Saints scored regardless of what was actually going on on the pitch.
It's Saints V Wigan for God's sake. It's one of the biggest games of the year. Why give it to a spectacularly incompetent, useless school boy!?!?!?!

I'm pleased Wigan have won but the game was ruined for me.

At times he did okay but I think the players hoodwinked him far too easily.

I said on another thread, with a better ref they don't score and we score more!!

TrueBlueWarrior wrote:I said on another thread, with a better ref they don't score and we score more!!

I felt the same at the game but having watched it back I'm happy enough. Let's face it, Stains needed all the help they could get!

cpwigan wrote:At times he did okay but I think the players hoodwinked him far too easily.

The cheat McCarthy-Scarbrooke sure did when he milked a penalty by throwing ball between his legs and falling to one side.

Walsh is another for milking penalties.

I agree but at least he wasn't fooled by Amor trying to get Joel sent off for his high tackle. I spotted him winking at the physio. My family thought I was crackers then Joel even told the ref about it. It helped us on that occasion. However, the ball steel by their own player was awful. Why didn't video ref intervene with that one?

Thought Tomkins did very well not to give Scarbrook a slap, he was niggling him the whole match. A few seasons ago he would have retaliated and we all know what happens when a Wigan player retaliates.

I don't think he is any worse than any other ref. Collectively they follow the same formula and together they determine which rules they are prepared to ignore. After the Hull v Hull KR match, Lee Radford said that although the penalty count was 7 - 3 against his team at half time, he knew it would balance up in the second half. How did he know this? Because that's what happens. It's ridiculous. If a team keeps offending, it should be penalized. It doesn't matter if the penalty count is heavily in favour of the other side. You can't ignore foul play just to "balance the books".

Interestingly Leeds felt their game at Cas was not well officiated. You could say same for every club in their reaction or monitor are penalties on the increase in every game and the officials following an edict from Mr Ganson. If so players/clubs need to act accordingly to minimise penalties conceded.

Kiwiseddon wrote:What the hell were the RFL thinking in giving that game to Hicks?!?!?!?!
He is completely incompetent and ruined what should have been a great game.

I have said it before but it is worth repeating. Hicks is not fit to be a linesman let alone a referee.