I'm in favour of them making it public, I also think the outcome which hopefully will lead to better decisions in the future, will also be made public. I am not saying this with the goal of making Hicks a scapegoat, but to not seeing future games ruined by this type of performance.
I don't rate the ref's performance. All I'm suggesting is that the RFL referee's should as per their processes. It was a monumental error and one that they themselves will judge as wholly avoidable. The rest of the game showed no improvement from Hicks, markers and offside in particular were completely ignored throughout. He had a poor game, why are you so blindly defending him? The refs are appraised internally and I'd be amazed if Hicks scores well, but obviously they won't admit that publicly. But it would be a farce if he was given the GF after thst abomination.
As for the players, that's up to the coaches. I'd personally be dropping two or three of them and forcing another to kick goals off the back of what happened in the final.
It is always said that dubious penalties and rough calls even themselves out over a season - the problem is that if you get them in a knockout game there is no evening up, there is no opportunity to get your fair shout.
If a referee isn't taken to task for the type of game changing errors he made then what hope do we have as a sport.
I'm not defending anyone, just asking some reasonable questions, in the interest of debate and opinion I think they are fair questions. Healthy debates need people to share their thoughts and ask questions from more than one perspective otherwise only one view is represented
I've on.y really read that refs should be accountable, but people go on to say they have internal processes which are private, so do we agree they are accountable?
And if not happy with that what do people want ?
Any professional should be taken to account when making mistakes, the larger the stage the harsher those mistakes are judged.
Hicks was given the final because he has been judged to be the best ref and the best person for the job. If the best ref is capable of making such poor calls and refereeing in such a way then the culpability starts to have wider ramifications.
Should the system for televised knockout games be reviewed?
Options would be a second video ref who is looking specifically at errors for the ref using other camera angles and if they are significant enough can bring them back to restart within a limited period of time - similar to NFL with a flag on the play.
One option that has been talked about a lot is having a "captains call" to review some decisions
The calls on the weekend were of such a poor standard and had such an impact on the largest stage that is possible, that the game may change to prevent it happening again.
As for the Referee the reasons behind his performance needs to be understood, then he needs to work on that with help from the ref's team. He should also now be ruled out of the Grand Final as he clearly isn't capable, he should also be kept away from any Saints or Wire matches for the rest of this year to remove any additional pressure this would bring
That is the response I would expect from a professional sports body - understand why and fix it if it can be.
TBF I am not holding my breath
That's probably the most reasoned and rationale response I've seen. I agree, a supportive approach to improving standards rather than a "through them under the bus" approach
What most people want is punishment not accountability, it's addressing their own anger at the situation and isn't s solution to the problem only their own anger
I do believe it will be addressed and spoken about but still don't understand what asking for an explanation do, what else can he say other than I thought he knocked it dead and wanted to keep the game flowing?
All that needs to happen is for Hicks to come out and admit he got it wrong and he is very disappointed in his performance
I seem to remember that Ganson did that after his massive error gifted Leeds a win at a Magic weekend
Although on that occasion the Bradford chairman actually asked the Rfl that the points be taken from Leeds and given to Bradford - at least we've not asked for the cup to be handed over!
I think Saints have done the right thing asking for answers and we will never find out what the RFL says as they probably dont know what to say. They are not going to say Hicks was wrong by not going to the video ref.
I knew in the first few mins Hicks was not going to be giving offsides or slowing the play down penalties, which suited Warrington and although I always like to think refs are human and do make mistakes, I really can’t think of a reason why he didn’t use the technology available to have a look at the knowles no try. It’s a cup final being watched by millions of people so surely a decent ref would send it upstairs.
Hopefully by complaining we might not see Hicks officiating any of our remaining games this season
I get the impression the club have accepted the errors made by the referee but have raised questions about why he has officiated the game in a completely different way with the 10 metre and marker rulings. Imagine if we get a Saints v Wire grand final with Hicks the referee he would be fully aware that he would have to be spot on in applying the rules of the game in the correct manner to avoid a reoccurrence.
Firstly asking for clarification is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, the one area you could question is why make it public that the club are asking for an explanation? - my take on that would be they need to show the fans that they are doing something about it rather than lying back and taking it mainly due to the impact it has had, they have made it clear that any responses are between the RFL and the club so, although it has sparked up a bit of controversy, I think they have done the best with a bad lot.
The individual elements are straight forward to query, the interesting point (for me) was the query on the 10m. I was lucky enough to watch the game from a central position and high enough up to see what was happening and I completely agree with the club questioning this - it is an intangible when a ref just doesn't give something on such a consistent basis, that fits right into the game plan of the opposition. From what I saw Warrington were willing to give away penalty after penalty at the 10m to disrupt the Saints play - however the Ref didn't penalise them to make it so that they stopped.
As for the Refs explanation I would hope that the questioning goes a little deeper than that, the fact it wasn't (couldn't have been) clear that Knowles knocked the ball dead simply because he didn't. The questions should be more around why did you not follow established best practice and refer the incident to the Video ref, I cannot see any answer to that except "I made a mistake" - again if the best ref in the country makes such poor mistakes in such crucial games then he should no longer have the title of best ref and others need to be given the big games to prove themselves and he would come back into the running after a time spent learning how to resolve his mistakes.
Excellent post ST. Don't forget the Wire knock on in to Grace that Hicks awarded as an attacking scrum to Wire from which they subsequently scored. If it was JUST the first Saints "try", which is bad enough , not going to the VR, but it's the 10m, the "cramp" stopping play, the second disallowed Saints "try", you can go on and on. Hicks is either the poorest ref in the comp (obviously not in the opinion of the RFL or they wouldn't have given him the CC Final), or something else is at play here. Only Hicks know the answer.
I'm struggling to think of any plausible explaination The RFL could come up regarding the non referral of the claimed "Try".
There is a transparency process between Clubs and the RFL on officiation to avoid clubs casting over negative assertions through the media. McManus or Rush are within there rights to ask questions, I would imagine every Superleague club would ask questions in a similar manner under the circumstances of that final. If Wane was coaching he would have been knocking on the refs door at half time.
Again trying to keep the game flowing he was confident that knowles had knocked it dead, so not going the screen was the right thing to do, his error was getting it so wrong! Why was he so confident it wasn't a try? That was the major error. I've watched it back several times and his hand slips off the side, the old days you really needed control and to make a clean put down, but I guess it would have been awarded in today's interpretation.
The process he followed was correct, which makes me think the process is wrong. If it was a referral system then the responsibility would be on the player to make the call. This system would help the ref
The only defence the ref has is that at a glance it looked like he bounced it, but I admit it's a weak defence as that's why we have VR! Again a referral system would solve this problem.
I don't think it affected the players, we were on top for the first twenty minutes and just carried on, I'm not sure they really thought we had scored
The other thing I'm struggling with is why the players accepted it so easy? I dont want them back chatting but I think the captain and player should have challenged the ref, they didn't have much time but still could have questioned it
Response in bold above
The only one I can think of is the ref messed up, what else could they say?
We have yo be careful though that we don't complain so much we look like bad losers and feel sorry for ourselves, we cannot avoid the fact that wire did a number on us regardless of the errors. I've seen posts saying wire had s good try disallowed also?
I just want to make things clear before I continue, I am not blaming the ref for our loss, the Warrington side simply wanted it more and had a game plan that came off for them. And I am not the type of supporter who will blame a ref, but I do genuinely believe that the ref had a far greater influence on the outcome of this game than a ref should have.
I know how difficult it is to accept this - and I have no evidence to point to as the TV coverage certainly didn't highlight it - but it became very obvious what was happening and once you noticed it, the more obvious it became. The ref would take Wire back 10m on the first 2 or 3 then 12 m for one or two and then alternate, with Saints he would start at 12m and then throw in 1 or 2 10m, Most refs will do this maybe not so lopsided but they will change the 10 to 12 frequently. You become accustomed to players being in front of the ref when he is at 12m, but the distance in front at the 10m was the same and there were plenty of times players were 3m in front of the ref. I understand about letting the game flow, but these players then became involved and were never penalised. I can remember 1 offside penalty all game.
My belief is that Wire wanted to strangle the game by cutting down our options, that's a great way to play if you are forced to start from 10m each time, but you should not be allowed to do this so consistently form 8m - it nullifies the advantage that the quick play the balls we generated gives you.
The speed at which he reset that game, plus the new Ganson directive about talking back to refs (which I completely agree with BTW)and that it wasn't a senior member of the squad all contributed to that, it looked like Roby was trying to convince him but he was having none of it - now imagine that Hill or Ratchford were the player in Knowles shoes - I think there would have been a much larger protest
Although when you throw this into the mix it makes it very hard to take, had this been an isolated incident I would not have a problem with it, this was just a genuine mistake in the field of play - I would have expected the best ref in the comp to see it - but if he didn't then that's sportOriginally Posted by Prez
I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t go to the screen. There are decisions that get sent up to VR that are less obvious groundings than that was.
But it was 0-0 after it was only a couple of minutes into the game so I don’t wanna complain too much. Would certainly have helped though mentally more than anything given how we’ve started big games in recent years. Was nice play as well, deserved a try and obviously it was a try.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
Accepting the result and the fact that the ref made a mistake is not rolling over for a tummy tickle.
Do you think Holbrook asked Coote why he stone cold dropped a 100/100 catch?
Why Makinson went for his diving put down when it's a run in try?
Why a simple conversion was missed?
Why Walmsley had lard on his fingers?
It's easily explained why Hicks didn't go to the VR. It's because he was, in his eyes, 100% sure it wasn't grounded correctly. Turns out he was 100% wrong.
Let's move on.