: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:02 pm  

warriorweed wrote:

I always try to judge a VR decision by swapping it round and thinking what I would have felt had the decision had to have been made the other way around.

eg.

Lulu try - I thought that Ainscough was offside (if only slightly) and would have been mad as hell if Leeds had scored it and it would have been allowed.

Hock try - this board would have been up in arms had Leeds scored that try and it been allowed. The problems lies in the fact that the obstruction rule is a complete mess and I don't think anyone, and that includes the refs, know how to interpret the rule correctly.

Peacock try - Had it been Fielden I would have gutted to see a decision any other than TRY.

Therefore in my opinion as hard as it may be to take I think they got all 3 decisions correct.

I'm afraid I disagree with most of this.

Lulu try - correct decision, no try.

Hock try - have we really, as a game, come to the point where a player who knows he cannot make a tackle has only to throw himself at a stationary player in order to get a perfectly worked try disallowed! Sure, if the attacking player changes his line to 'block' the defender but deliberately running at a player and claiming obstruction is making a mockery of our game. Let's be honest...and this should be the defining reasoning here...had O'Loughlin not been on the field the Leeds player would not have prevented that try!

Peacocks try - These are given as 'no try' every week. In fact Leeds held a couple up the previous match at Warrington and rightly got the decisions. The defender should be credited just as much as the attacker. Nowhere can the ball be seen to touch the ground, yet you can clearly see it held up. As a Leeds poster says elswhere, you can only 'guess' that it 'probably' touched the ground. That's not good enough. The only actual evidence suggests that it was held up. Why should the benefit go to th attacker when the only evidence available supports the defender?! As an aside look at the player's reactions. Peacock doesn't celebrate the try and Richards is vociferous in his claims that it has been held up by O'Loughlin. Player reaction is usually as good an indicator as anything else!

I thought Smith was poor last night. He never called a single forward pass, despite there being many, including some that lead to tries and missed 2 blatent reefs among many other things. However we lost due to our own errors, so in the end it's all just tomorrow's chip wrappers...

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:33 pm  

Phuzzy wrote:

Hock try - have we really, as a game, come to the point where a player who knows he cannot make a tackle has only to throw himself at a stationary player in order to get a perfectly worked try disallowed! Sure, if the attacking player changes his line to 'block' the defender but deliberately running at a player and claiming obstruction is making a mockery of our game. Let's be honest...and this should be the defining reasoning here...had O'Loughlin not been on the field the Leeds player would not have prevented that try!

The Wigan dummy runner really needed to run through the line and not stop, causing a potential block on a defender. I'm sure we've all fallen foul of this, Leeds did last season at Harlequins for instance.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:40 pm  

moonlight flit wrote:

Video refs are biased !

biased in what way please?

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:46 pm  

tvoc wrote:

The Wigan dummy runner really needed to run through the line and not stop, causing a potential block on a defender. I'm sure we've all fallen foul of this, Leeds did last season at Harlequins for instance.

I'm not particularly questioning the decision so much as the fact that the video refs have come to interpret it this way. It was always the case that a player had to 'alter their line' so as to be seen to be deliberately bocking (or obstructing ) another player for this decision to be given. Now all a player has to do is launch himself at a stationary player in order to get a perfectly worked try disallowed! That's a pathetic interpretation of the rule IMO and I'm not sure how we, as a game, have come to accept it.

Just one question. Do you think the Leeds defender would have prevented the try had O'Loughlin not been there? I doubt he would have even got a hand to Hock let alone effected the tackle on a player in full flight! That should be the sole arbiter of whether he was obstructed or not.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:12 pm  

Phuzzy wrote:

Just one question. Do you think the Leeds defender would have prevented the try had O'Loughlin not been there? I doubt he would have even got a hand to Hock let alone effected the tackle on a player in full flight! That should be the sole arbiter of whether he was obstructed or not.

I'd need to at least have a few more looks to judge on that one. As I said before though had the Wigan dummy runner continued his run through the line then there would have been no problem. It's a coached tactic for the dummy runner to halt around the gain line/defensive line to create a block and open a hole in the defence. While Ablett certainly made the most of the block, the Wigan player being stationary there minding his own business as it were, gave the struggling defender an easy way out.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:01 pm  

tvoc wrote:

I'd need to at least have a few more looks to judge on that one. As I said before though had the Wigan dummy runner continued his run through the line then there would have been no problem. It's a coached tactic for the dummy runner to halt around the gain line/defensive line to create a block and open a hole in the defence. While Ablett certainly made the most of the block, the Wigan player being stationary there minding his own business as it were, gave the struggling defender an easy way out.

True. But that's exactly what's wrong with giving these decisions to the defender throwing themselves at a stationary opponent. There should be nowhere to hide on a rugby field. If he wasn't up to the task at hand (which he wasn't) he/his side should pay the penalty. There was no infringement or hinderence to him making the tackle had he spotted the break early enough. He didn't and was left floundering. Giving players this 'soft option' is, as I said earlier, making a mockery of the rule.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:18 pm  

Phuzzy wrote:

True. But that's exactly what's wrong with giving these decisions to the defender throwing themselves at a stationary opponent. There should be nowhere to hide on a rugby field. If he wasn't up to the task at hand (which he wasn't) he/his side should pay the penalty. There was no infringement or hinderence to him making the tackle had he spotted the break early enough. He didn't and was left floundering. Giving players this 'soft option' is, as I said earlier, making a mockery of the rule.

And on the other side of the same coin Wigan's dummy runner was needlessly stood still in the defensive line, causing his own team a problem as it turned out, so it cuts both ways.

At least simple crossing with no defender in touching distance is no longer the automatic penalty that it once was although occasionally it's still blown up.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:24 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

You guys really think you're something special. You're not.

If you were a genuinely special team, you'd have blown us away by 50 clear points last night. As it was, you deservedly won, but were helped massively in the second half by some extremely dubious refereeing.

Don't worry - we'll be in the play-offs. And yet again, you lot will be kakking your keks at the thought of meeting us.

In a way, you're right. In pretty much all of our league games this season, we've been there to be done over.

It therefore begs the question why have five teams, all of whom work under the same regulations and restrictions that Leeds work under, been incapable of doing it?

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:28 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

You guys really think you're something special. You're not.

If you were a genuinely special team, you'd have blown us away by 50 clear points last night. As it was, you deservedly won, but were helped massively in the second half by some extremely dubious refereeing.

Don't worry - we'll be in the play-offs. And yet again, you lot will be kakking your keks at the thought of meeting us.

from your posts crusher i can see you really love your team! and fair do's to ya. but this post is born out of great disapointment with your own team and non of it is really true.

: Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:40 pm  

Phuzzy wrote:

True. But that's exactly what's wrong with giving these decisions to the defender throwing themselves at a stationary opponent. There should be nowhere to hide on a rugby field. If he wasn't up to the task at hand (which he wasn't) he/his side should pay the penalty. There was no infringement or hinderence to him making the tackle had he spotted the break early enough. He didn't and was left floundering. Giving players this 'soft option' is, as I said earlier, making a mockery of the rule.

every team in every professional sport are coached to play the rules to there own advantage.

you change the law and coaches in defence or attack will find a new way to bend them.