Refs - were they that bad?

Ganson and Ian Smith I always thought were decent. Russell Smith less so.

Its a hard job which I think has become harder in recent times, social media playing a part and also messing round at the play of the ball and some player theatrics.

Hicks is a funny one: I think he has got better but 10 years ago he was hopeless. The Batley NRC Final he gave a pen to Batley in front of the sticks and then you could visibly see him squirm because the big screen replay showed it was a bad decision. We lost by 1 pt.....

One of, if not the worst of modern refs must have been Cobb. Thankfully he’s disappeared. And of the older refs, Noddy(nick oddy) was one of the worst, and before him Gerry Kershaw. Cant remember who the ref was , after a terribly biased performance at Leigh, went into the empty stand on the opposite side of the pitch to the tunnel, and stayed there till all the Widnes fans had left, because a lot of them were stood by the exit chanting we want??!!

One of my friends had reminded me the ref at Leigh was Colin Morris.

I think it is a very difficult job that I would not ever do. I do think they generally try their best.  Having said that when he started Hicks was awful. He penalised us to death game after game.  When we were in Super League & our  game was televised I always used to rerun it the same night & must admit a lot of the things I questioned live at the game  proved the referee got a lot of those decisions correct but still did get the odd crucial  decision wrong against us rather than for us. It seems to me the referees these days do tend to favour the top teams certainly in Football & Rugby League. The team that has the most territory get the decisions in their favour.

The RFL have decided to give two of our younger refs the chance to control important play-off games. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you can use a far more experienced official as video ref to support them and ensure fair play.

You can’t blame referees for making mistakes, everyone else does and if we have video refs let’s use them - or why not bin the idea and simply accept that incorrect decisions do happen in all walks of life?

IMHO Chris Kendall has been let down twice now and so I hope that he will improve as he gains more experience. After all, you can’t learn experience from a book, you just have to “learn on the job”.

Let’s hope that’s Liam Moore’s performance doesn’t become another talking point after tonight’s match.

Richard Silverwood was the worst, a comprehensive narcissist,  with all the bad characteristics you can’t have as a ref. His last game officiating us against St Helens was a disaster.

When we played against Leigh last year in the semifinal, was it just me or did the clock seem to stop at 77 mins? I remember seeing there was 3 mins to go but the game seemed too have went on for a lot longer.

They are better than in the past, remember a big guy called clay, cannot remember his first name, he absolutely hated us and it was a mutual feeling

Not strictly true - Eric Clay, or the Sergeant Major as dubbed by Eddie Waring, was quite an imposing figure and had an authoritative style on the pitch in the 50s and 60s. Would often respond to insults from spectators with a look or a gesture. A good firm referee who all fans swore he hated their club - a sign of a decent referee. Other referees of that era (60s to the 80s) who were characters, but firm referees, were Fred Lindop and Billy Thompson.

Another bad one was Calamity Carl(Fitzpatrick). As well as always seeming to be against Widnes, I think it was him that used to seem, when on TV,to stand with his best side towards the camera🙄

Kirkpatrick you mean? The only ref who I genuinely believed was biased against us. Some of the decisions in that vital against Cas beggared belief, they really did.

Interesting that of the referees we have transferred to the NRL, Ashley Klyne is the only one who actually referees on the field.

Robb is on the touchline occasionally but Russell Smith is restricted to the Bunker!

Kirkpatrick was a Wire wasn't he? Seem to remember he went to ref Union because he had a well paid job in finance and didn't want to go full time.

Isn’t he part of the backroom staff at Warrington now?

Don't know about Karl Kirkpatrick, but Karl Fitzpatrick who played a few games for us about 20 years ago before going to play FB for Salford is the CEO of Wire.

Don’t know about Karl Kirkpatrick, but Karl Fitzpatrick who played a few games for us about 20 years ago before going to play FB for Salford is the CEO of Wire.

I remember the game which confirmed our Academy as winning the title, at Batley with Fitzer playing for us!