Childish from LMS, deserved the sin-binning and not what I want to see from one of our senior players
Yes that’s a good point. IF a player was calming down before talking to the ref than that’s some justification for it. But if he’s just being petulant and ignoring the ref then there’s no excuse. There’s also an argument to say even if a player has lost his head then he should be able to take a few second and a deep breath and then go and speak to the ref.
NEVER WRITE OFF THE SAINTS
That was what it looked like on the day to me - he was trying to compose himself.
However the extended highlights have audio, and while it is a highly unusual response by the ref (I don't think I have ever seen it before in 35 years of watching) LMS was really stupid to just ignore what the ref was saying to him, but pretty sure he didn't think he was going to get a yellow for it.
I prefer them to control their anger and treat the ref with respect. If we justify walking off and ignoring the ref if you are angry, we have justified every single player who ignores the ref, the player will simply claim they were angry and face no penalty
We used to have lots of respect for refs, and union still has, those refs are just as bad, they just insist on respect and have kept that culture. We have followed football culture in justifying abuse, continually blaming refs, excusing player behaviour etc. Until we accept refs will make errors and apply respect regardless for the sake of the game rather than the person then this cycle will continue. We respect the rules and the person trying to apply them for the integrity of the game, not because we feel a certain way about an individual ref.
It's worth remembering that often a decision we see as bad is seen as good by the opposition, and vice versa, you cannot please each team
We had this discussion a couple of weeks ago, it is split almost down the middle and I suspect it may be a generation divide.
What is not in doubt is it will cost us in the not so distant future if Louie continues with this. It is a hard enough game as it is, the ref is human, if a 50/50 decision that involves us or LMS for a last minute deciding try does not get refered to the video ref then we may suffer a defeat because of this previous behaviour. I just hope it is not a GF or CC Final.
Just saw it, seems fair enough.. he walks over slow as possible, laughs when the ref starts talking and then puts his head down.. put it down to inexperience as a captain.. just needed to play the game really