Spot on, both teams played properly right to the end which is a credit to Ian Watson.
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If you watch Welham he wasn't even looking in the direction of the play when the scrum broke but then complained when he realised he'd been caught out
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He missed the Hastings forward pass for Bibbys try and the call against Dudson he got wrong as Smith was all over him. They were the only big ones he got wrong.
Thought he had a good first half but got some stuff wrong in the second half. Most of it was 50/50 calls like ball steals and at the ruck which sometimes can go in favour of the dominant team. Most of the calls went saints way which is why I'd feel let down if I was a Salford fan. None of it was game changing and the better team clearly won on the night. The only time Salford were in it was when they threw the ball about and played off the cuff. After they scored they tried to go back into an arm wrestle with us and never looked like scoring again. That's the reason they lost.
The Dudson one was a penalty but i can also see why he didnt give it, at the end of the day its the ball carriers job to play the ball correctly, he didn’t do that. There seems to have been a change in officiating this year where if you play the ball incorrectly, even if someone is impeding you slightly you will get a knock on called against you where as previously the defender would be penalised, there was one in the last couple of games where the ball was placed on the markers foot, the marker moved their foot and a knock on was called. Dudson could have waited until Smith was off him, or made more of an effort to get him off to bring it to the attention of the ref, he didnt and left the ref with a decision because he didnt play the ball correctly.
He pinged us for an identical one to the Dudson one so at least he was consistent
Kendall was brilliant. His control of the game in general is superb and he's consistent. You can argue over some very minor 50:50s if you want to, but there were certainly no controversial moments. Dudson and the two Naiqama tackles are the ones Twitter is beefing about and I can understand the Dudson one. But as mentioned above he doesn't even attempt to play it correctly, a more savvy player would just play it and fall over and get the penalty. The Naiqama tackles are up to the touch judge to flag for, the high shot after the kick is impossible for Kendall to see properly as all he can see is Big Kev's back and the linesman doesn't flag. The shoulder charge was hardly your best Sonny Bill Williams impression either, if anything Naiqama just stands his ground and Inu tries to bump him and comes off second best.
The only thing Kendall genuinely did wrong was the ball steal from Thommo around the 49th minute that he gave as a knock on.
There is a funny letter in the league express this morning about it however from Bill Anderson in Parbold. "He disallowed Lolohea's try for Salford for no reason. It was the wrong decision but it was not a mistake - it was a construction". :D
Watching the shoulder charge one back in slow-mo (which Sky didn't do), the Salford player is the one who moves the shoulder forward into the tackle. Naqaima just stands there, he doesn't wrap his arms round but he doesn't lead with his shoulder either so that isn't a penalty.
Ashworth should have been penalised for putting his head in the tackle the way he did (bearing in mind patting someone on the head is now a sinbinning) which would have been in a good position for Salford. Difficult to tell on the high tackle from Naqaima as they didn't really show the right angle on the replay
The only other contentious thing was our try from the scrum as Fages didn't go back behind the base of the scrum but the Salford player was tracking Roby not Fages and you'll see that go unpenalised throughout the season so would be odd to pick up on it for the first time in a final
We can analyse the death out of Kendall’s performance, but the fact that we can all remember every little detail of the disputed calls shows how few there were, and how good he was.
Agreed, i think it helps that the players seem to respect him, he may get decisions wrong at times but at least you can understand the how he ends up at that decision. Was he perfect, no, but he was good enough to allow the game to flow well and made decisions that made sense.
Fages may well have been offside by the letter of the law but as you say he did not interfere with any defender. For the referee to award a penalty, he would also for consistency’s sake need to penalise
- edge players for being within 10 metres of the line of attack at the play-the-ball even if they were 70 metres away from the ball;
- any defender not square at the play-the-ball even though they make no attempt to tackle;
- any player in front of the kicker irrespective of whether they are within 10 metres of where the ball lands;
- any player who is in front of his team’s kick returner or play-the-ball and still retreating back to his line after the opposition have kicked the ball;
- any defender on the wrong side of the ruck as the ball is played.
All are technically offside but referees follow a pragmatic approach and only penalise if they interfere with the attack. You would expect ex-players to recognise this but unfortunately the Sky commentary team are collectively woeful, seeking to court controversy while showing their lack of professionalism by the inability to consistently name players correctly.
Agree but you did miss one rule out: correct 'put in' at the scrum.
If we are going down the SKY route of argument; surely Fages should have been pinged for feeding...?
As you say pragmatism is the order of the day; you're just not going to see penalties for these sort of things or the game would be a total farce. SKY were simply trying to create faux controversy which many so called 'neutrals' from the Warrington/Wigan area were keen to latch on at any opportunity.
Some of the nonsense on RLfans was highly amusing; 'I'm a neutral but...' You can't argue with stupid as they say, but you can abuse it. I enjoyed wading into the pillocks on that site, stripping back their bullsh!t arguments and exposing them as the bitter, bigoted fools that they are.
The problem is the rule about the put in at scrums has not been enforced at all this year, so the way it was done on Saturday has been accepted all year and deemed ok. It would have been dodgy if having been like that all year they then decide to enforce it, what they do need to do at the RFL is either apply the rules as written or change the rules to match what goes on.
I watched the rerun of the game and during the coverage there was not one pundit/former referee (including Phil Clarke) that said that the try should have been disallowed. It was only (45 min) after full time that Phil Clarke made an issue of it. It seems to me somebody contacted sky regarding this rule. Anyway the point being that Phil Clarke changed his mind from the commentary to 45 min after full time. So clearly he does not know the rules properly himself
That’s pretty much my point, the rule as it is in the rulebook has not been enforced all season so no one would have thought there was anything wrong with it, clearly Kendall and Thaler didnt as there was nothing mentioned about Fages, it was queried if anyone was held in, and quickly proven that no one was. Phil Clarke is just an ass who offers nothing in the commentary box other than an anti saints voice, its past time he was let go, i guess the person who contacted sky had a Warrington area code on their phone id.
I thought compared to most games Kendall had a lot less to put up with around the PTB that if had been a Wigan team or Castleford. He made a few errors most of which Saints got the advantage but only the Dudson one was critical because of Salford's field position at the time. All in all he is probably the best ref at the moment but I would say it would be an advantage to have two on the field.
It's not been enforced for about 30 years mate. The point I was trying to make is that SKY and the pillocks who wanted to bag Kendall were clinging on to some obscure technicality that if given and applied consistently would create havoc. You'd have about 50 penalties a game.
Fortunately we had two teams who wanted to play rugby league and not teams who were spoilers, play actors, or idiots who come piling in at a perceived injustice. So refreshing to see the sportsmanship, thank God that Wire or the Crust Munchers swerved Old Trafford! Nice to see a game decided on merit with no punch ups!
I agree the Sky commentary team is a joke, but by the letter of the law they do have a point, its a poorly put together one as it is never enforced, but it is still in the rulebook, if the RFL has a policy of the referees not enforcing it, then remove it for the avoidance of doubt. Their attempt to bag Kendall was poor form, he had a good game, called what he had to, let enough minor indiscretions go so the game wasn’t disrupted too much and only made a few mistakes, mistakes which did not affect the result of the game and you were able to understand the decisions made.