FearTheVee

Simply because they had so many opportunities to score but for some reason couldn't complete a set. Don't get me wrong - the fact that they kept bombing everything means they didn't deserve to win the game but I think 9/10 they post a LOT of points in that second half, it was almost comical the various ways they found to turn over possession.

I don't actually think Leeds were that good. Warrington should have destroyed them. They spent most of the second half tearing them to bits then making a ridiculous error. Leeds hanging in is one way of looking at it, but Wire were just appalling in terms of patience and execution and should have won comfortably.

I agree - I mean it's far more likely he put his hand to his head for your reason than for the reason of his head banging into the ground.

Man raises hand to head after head bangs into ground - what a rascal eh.

Fages is worth more to teams that don't have Lewis Dodd and Coote is worth more to teams that don't have Jack Weslby. Salary cap doing it's thing, no complaints here.

I think Wigan fans (and players on Twitter, a good look) complaining about the ref would do better to wonder why their own team is in a place where they have to spend all game desperately trying to stop a game of rugby breaking out by being a niggly, ill disciplined rabble. Good win for Saints, impressive first half. Second half is irrelevant as the conditions were practically unplayable by then. Great to see Percy back and getting through 80 minutes.

I think we will win the game but we are very scratchy in attack - I suspect it will be much much closer than you think.

I think swearing and name calling is against the true spirit of the game and should be penalised at the indivdual ref's sole discretion.

Bit of a daft question, but why are we making this arbitary distinction about what injuries justify dropping the ball without a knock on being given (ie unopposed)? How are you defining unopposed - 20 metres from a player? 5? Any time immediately before contact? What sort of injury is OK - what about something flying into your eye? Rolling your ankle in a way where you can carry on? If a full back drop a ball cold, unopposed and goes down hurt - is that an unopposed injury? Who decides? When I played (at a rubbish standard! ) - if I had been running the ball back from a kick, say 40 metres from any chaser, got something wrong with my return (maybe I hadn't warmed up properly and pulled a hamstring, maybe I got my feet a little wrong and turned an ankle or knee) and dropped the ball, I genuinely wouldn't for a second think that the game would be stopped for me. I would feel very unluckly and feel sorry for myslef but not for a moment would I suggest the opposition couldn't pick the ball up and play on.

The point is that you are saying that for everyone here the answer is obvious and not subjective and therefore will always be so, such that this is an easy black and white thing. Clearly this isn't the case - injuries are different, they happen at different distances from a player. Some are serious, some are not. Some at first appear serious then the player gets up and plays on. And even in "obvious" situations, what may be obvious to one player with one view may not be obvious to others who may be scanning across the line. The only truly obvious approach is to do what has always been the case - if you are hurt you try to go to ground with the ball and everyone else plays to the whistle. The reason this is rare is not becuase players don't get hurt in posession, it's because they usually don't throw the ball away when they are hurt and if they do, their luck is usually better than for it to lead to a walk-in try in a tight semi-final.

But even allowing a walk in try creates chaos. At what point does the game cease to exist and the levelling up begin? After the walk in try do we fabricate a situation where Hull are having to come off their line because that was what was happening before this "unsporting" try was scored, they were given a breather and some points? If Saints pick the ball up, stop then score on the next tackle, we've still profited from the bad luck that is a ruptured achilles and a dropped ball - so it's still unfair? Or is this now fair even though it's directly resulted from the same change in possession from the same bad luck? Maybe you have to give the ball back to Hull for another player to PTB? If so, what are the injuries and situations where this happens? Or you chalk it down to what it was, rotten bad luck in a big game, and move on.

It has happened before - hurt players drop the ball all the time, including unopposed, and opposition players pick the ball up. Has it happened with a walk in try in a cup semi final? Probably not but again that takes us back to having to subjectively judge how much detriment is acceptable due to bad luck. I understand it was difficult to watch because it was such bad fortune. It doesn’t sit well with me, not because it was unsportmanlike or because the ref should have done something else, but because you a) don’t like to see players injured and b) don’t like to see bad fortune cost points. But bad fortune it was if you stand back from this you see what has always always been true in the sport - hurt players (Achilles or any other injury) instinctively try to go to ground with the ball because they know that injury isn’t a pass for dropping it for all the many and various subjective reasons covered in this thread. if they drop it they drop it and it’s rotten bad luck, like all sorts of other injuries on the pitch which impact play are.

I honestly do get where you’re coming from but you’re saying you don’t mind a player taking advantage of the injury (taking possession) but not if they have a chance to score. This is the problem with saying anything other than play on - it’s just enormously subjective. what if Griffin got injured behind his own line - would it be ok to fall on the ball? If so why? Would the player have to pick it up and run back behind the try lone, take a tackle and try to score on the next set? What if there is five minutes left in a match and a full back knows there is a bomb coming? Maybe you hobble a little when it goes up then jump on the floor if you drop it? how much time is enough time for a player to assess whether the player dropping the ball is injured? Should you not kick in the direction of injured players? Should you not run in the direction of injured players? In what circumstances should injury stop play from a sporting point of view (we know the rules currently and they aren’t leg injuries). The only sensible outcome is to chalk unfortunate incidents like this down to what they are - bad luck.

how should the players and ref assess dropped balls? Should the opposing team pick up the ball then everyone stand still and wait to see whether the player is badly hurt or just hurt or just pretending to be hurt, then decide how to carry on? Or perhaps we just accept that sometimes injured players might drop the ball in unfortunate situations just like injured players might miss a tackle.

Honestly interested in a few things given you feel strongly on this, which I respect. Had a Hull player been next to Griffin, picked up the ball he lost backwards and gone the length - would that be unsporting or just play on? If a Saints player had picked it up and taken a tackle - would that be unsporting given we’ve taken advantage of an injury by picking a ball up? Or is only points that made it unsporting? What is the list of sanctioned injuries for dropping the ball without jeopardy and how should the ref assess them?

My only point is that both result in a team being four points worse off than they would have been absent some very bad luck, and both have nothing to do with the referee. And getting injured in a rugby collision is no different to getting injured running - they’re both examples of bad luck that have nothing to do with a referee or his interpretation of misconduct rules about sportsmanship (which is what I was referring to).

The only people really astonished at this awful display of callousness appear to be Wigan fans, which I find instructive. It’s really bad fortune for Hull and for Griffin but that’s really all there is to it. This idea that there’s a widely acknowledged code of conduct that you don’t pick up balls dropped by players who pick up a knock (in this case a bad one) is about as fanciful as the idea that players wouldn’t run at a player struggling with a knock on the field. When injured players drop the ball forward it’s a knock on, backwards it’s play on and it has always been like that.

For that to make any sense Fages would have to be guilty of misconduct for picking up a dropped rugby ball. which most sensible people can accept is nuts.

It’s the same thing in reverse - just costing an attacking team points rather than a defending team for the exact same injury. Neither have anything to do with the ref and rightly so.

If a player breaks the line, clear run for a try, pulls up a hamstring. Should the ref force the defending team to let the attacking team score because there was an unfortunate injury that cost them points because that is the sporting thing to do? it’s a nonsense - you try to hold the ball when injured, sometimes you can’t. You try to make that tackle when you’re injured, sometimes you can’t. You try to finish that clean break when you’re injured, sometimes you can’t. it’s just unfortunate. Anything about misconduct etc is bananas.

Just when you thought we had reached peak false equivalence . . . .

And so he should give it as a knock on, because that’s what it is. Do we want to task refs with working out who is in sufficient discomfort to be allowed to knock on? Talk about asking for subjective farce. The situation is what it has always been - injured players try to hold the ball and sometimes they don’t manage it. It is unfortunate but so is being in discomfort in a defensive line and missing a tackle.

Do you honestly believe this nonsense? I can imagine the disciplinary hearing - what was the misconduct? Well, he err, played to the whistle.

Players pick up knocks and spill the ball all the time. Players pick up bad injuries and hold on to the ball to the floor all the time. This was a nasty injury and it was unfortunate he didn’t manage to hold the ball to the floor, but I’m afraid that’s just the way it goes. It’s not for the ref to decide whether a player is sufficiently hurt to justify being allowed to lose the ball. I hope Griffin recovers well.