Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:37 pm  

Whether you are a Wigan, Saints or any other fan watching a replay of today's game I ask one simple question: how many times does Bentham actually LOOK left and right to check for offside?

In the first half I counted NINE consecutive possessions (Wigan & Saints) where he didn't look once. I've never seen anything like it in years.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:44 pm  

Bentham= Winker

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:51 pm  

I also wondered how many more penalties Wigan would have to give away on their own line before someone would have walked. That wound me up a lot!

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:55 pm  

SecondRowSaint wrote:

I also wondered how many more penalties Wigan would have to give away on their own line before someone would have walked. That wound me up a lot!

The big ginger lad (jack Hughes?) should have had a spell in the bin for persistant pens.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:56 pm  

It's very rare that I have a go at a referee. After all it is a very difficult role. But today's performance was bordering on the surreal. Tackle after tackle after tackle I continued to watch him and time after time after time he made no effort whatsoever to look down the defensive line. His head never moved once.

At first I thought he must be looking out of the corner of his eyes but this couldn't be true as on numerous occasions players were stood three to four yards offside whilst no more than a few feet away from him.

He simply wasn't looking. Astonishing.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:01 pm  

St pete wrote:

The big ginger lad (jack Hughes?) should have had a spell in the bin for persistant pens.

I agree with that, as he was the main culprit. It just wound me up how it took about 5 or 6 penalties I think before Bentham had a word with Finch.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:03 pm  

It was 3 IIRC before he spoke to Finch.

Touch Judges should have been looking for it as well, but they didn't really do anything the whole game, other than give 2 penalties involving Hock that were both wrong IMO. (One went our way, the other didn't, you could say they cancelled each other out)

On the whole, not the best refereeing performance of the season, but by no means the worst.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:03 pm  

He had a far greater influence on the game than he should have done.

As has been mentioned his refusal to pull a yellow out for persistent fouling during that spell of pressure ultimately decided the game.

His general performance was also very strange, with rules such as offside and forward passes from the ruck completely ignored.

You have to credit Wigan both for their resilience and their quality near our line but the referee had a major influence on the outcome. As for us losing Lomax was a disruption too far and the forwards didn't match their grit.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:36 pm  

St pete wrote:

The big ginger lad (jack Hughes?) should have had a spell in the bin for persistant pens.

I was surprised that Hughes wasn't binned. It was clearly a professional foul and stopped Roby scoring a certain try.

Re: Today's referee : Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:53 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

Whether you are a Wigan, Saints or any other fan watching a replay of today's game I ask one simple question: how many times does Bentham actually LOOK left and right to check for offside?

In the first half I counted NINE consecutive possessions (Wigan & Saints) where he didn't look once. I've never seen anything like it in years.

I've said for years that the touchjudge should officiate the offside at the PTB. The ref would then be able to focus solely on the tackle & ruck without thinking, "I have to run back quick to set the defensive line offside". Also, only having to look one way across a line, the TJ could see much more easily whether there were any transgressors.