St pete wrote:
The worst ref I've seen in my life. He just won't let a game flow. Constant penalties every single game he refs. He's upped his penalty count this year compared to last season and last season was horrific.
Super league is boring enough without this idiot slowing it down and spoiling it. Last year I was dreading going the games he was involved in.
Some of his poor decisions tonight was like something you'd see on Sundays with the u15s refs yet this idiot has two touch judges and video ref and still gets it wrong.
It's not his decision making that bothers me, it's his all round lack of presence. He's the kind of man who if he worked in a factory or a building site would be the guy you tape to the forklift truck or lock in the portaloo for a laugh. How the players maintain their composure when he's flapping about trying to justify his latest guess is beyond me. Not going to the screen when Inu scored was a mistake but on the whole I don't think he got too many decisions wrong after that, but he's one of those referees who cannot judge the impact of foul play. In a game was as many players and as many technical rules there will literally be something you could penalise on almost all plays. That doesn't mean you have to, the job of the referee is to judge when the rule breaking materially disadvantages the opposition, Hicks just gives everyone he sees.
Having said that, as poor a ref as he is, the players just don't help. The penalties that dragged Catalans back into the lead were perhaps the most stupid acts since Paul Cullen dropped his knees on a Wigan player to hand them the title at Wilderspool back in the day. The Watts one where he wheelbarrowed him was just idiotic and the constant attempts at the ball left him with no option to blow.
