Problems at Manchester Airport almost caused the postponement of Saturday’s Toulouse versus St Helens clash after RFL officials were left stranded in Munich.
A three-hour delay in Manchester caused connection-flight chaos for referee Liam Moore and his touch judge Liam Rush and the Super League match was in jeopardy until three French officials stepped in at the last minute.
Geoffrey Poumés and touch judges Stephane Vincent and Enzo Peyre took charge after a hasty phone call from the RFL, and the game went ahead on time.
It was a Super League debut for referee Poumés, who had only previously taken charge of League One fixtures.
And despite a lopsided penalty count of 14-3 awarded to the home team, the French official controlled the match without any incident or controversy.
Asked about the penalty count, Saints coach Kristian Woolf told League Express: “I thought there were a couple of home-team decisions but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
“I wasn’t particularly worried about it. I didn’t think we were particularly ill-disciplined and it didn’t affect the game.”
Woolf admitted that travel delays had taken their toll on his side’s performance in Toulouse, adding: “It does take it out of you, even though you’re not doing anything, it’s still tiring.”
St Helens chose to travel to France the day before the match, with Woolf admitting: “We certainly couldn’t have done it in just one day with the waiting time at airports at the moment, but there will be times when we have to do it in one day and we’ll have to get our heads around that.
“There were times when the travel made us a little leg-weary but we were tough enough and good enough to get through.”
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