Sat 15th - Sun 16th Jul: The Betfred Championship Match Thread

[RBKnight]

York beat Sheffield 23-18 - another great 2nd half from the Knights, from 6-12 down at h/t.

[Fevrover]

1 minute ago, RBKnight said:

York beat Sheffield 23-18 - another great 2nd half from the Knights, from 6-12 down at h/t.

Great!

[AJK66]

A good battling performance from Barrow. That made me feel a bit better about life.

A pity that Haven seemed to fall apart in the second half after a good start against the Bulls. Hopefully they can pull through this and we will have some cracking derbies to look forward to next year.

[The Future is League]

There is a bit of scramble down at the bottom between Swinton Lions, Barrow Raiders, Keighley Cougers and Whitehaven as to who will be relegated with Newcastle Thunder

[Dovster]

6 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

We have a relatively new bunch of referees at that level, as most of the refs who were officiating at Championship level a year or two ago  (the two Moores, Jack Smith, Chris Kendall, Tom Grant, Scott Mikalauskas, Marcus Griffiths etc) have now graduated to mostly officiating at SL level along with Ben Thaler.

The current usual roster who seem to officiate in Championship includes (I think) 3 Aussie/NZ refs (Rossleigh, Vella & Smaill), a couple of very young men (under 25 I think) in Liam Rush and Cameron Worsley, and Nick Bennett who has been around for a few years. A couple of those guys (Vella and Rush) I think are on the full-time roster.

Personally I think they do okay in what is a massively challenging job in the modern game. I probably watch more Championship games than most people and I've watched a lot of games this season where I've seen fans on social media absolutely slating the ref yet I haven't seen any games with a series of obviously "wrong" decisions, just a string of 50-50s that would have been contentious either way.

What I will say is some of the newer Championship refs don't have the confidence in their body language that an experienced SL ref such as Ben Thaler might have, you can see some of them having to think about decisions, this can make them look hesitant and indecisive, but for me most of them do a diffcult job very well. I'm genuinely not sure what anyone hopes to achieve by just saying that the standard is poor, there's a growing shortage of refs at all levels of the game because it's a thankless task and people increasingly just think they're fair game to have a pop at.

I also attend a good many Championship games and I'm sorry but must disagree with most of what you say.

What do I hope to achieve? Nothing, other than giving my opinion on a fans forum.

Maybe many of the referees are new to this level but IMO that still makes them poor. I'm sure in time they will become more exprerienced and improve but right here right now the overall standard is poor. 

If the refereeing standard was good, I would say so. Refereeing isn't easy I accept and many fans only see the game from their own perspective. IMO we lack consistancy. One referee gives a penalty one week and the following week nothing.

I genuinly go to the matches each week not knowing what to expect from the referee. I don't expect the Referee to get every decision right just the majority of them with some consistancy.

 

[Monkeymagic22]

Expected it to be a tough one at Barrow and it was. Fev need battles like that, to stop any complacency. Well done Barrow.

[The Phantom Horseman]

4 minutes ago, Dovster said:

IMO we lack consistancy. One referee gives a penalty one week and the following week nothing.

I genuinly go to the matches each week not knowing what to expect from the referee. I don't expect the Referee to get every decision right just the majority of them with some consistancy.

 

Every decision is an individual one and in every game the referee will have at least 20 decisions (probably a lot more) which could go either way. We regularly see even video refereeing decisions which  - after being shown in slow-motion several times - fans on social media have opposing views about.

The problem in my opinion isn't consistency of referees, it's fans who see every decision as being "correct" or "incorrect". If you had a panel of 100 neutral fans watching a game and having to vote on each decision I am fairly sure you would have umpteen instances where there would be a difference of opinion about what the decision should be.

[Jill Halfpenny fan]

Comfortable enough in the end for Widnes today. Hopefully that will be the end of the worrying glances over the shoulder at those below us. Attendance announced was 1,262 or there abouts.

[Monkeymagic22]

13 minutes ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

Comfortable enough in the end for Widnes today. Hopefully that will be the end of the worrying glances over the shoulder at those below us. Attendance announced was 1,262 or there abouts.

Widnes will be ok, seem to have got things together. 

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Widnes will be ok, seem to have got things together. 

Without our three likely highest paid players of Craven, Owens & Johnstone as well

[kiggy]

48 minutes ago, Dovster said:

I also attend a good many Championship games and I'm sorry but must disagree with most of what you say.

What do I hope to achieve? Nothing, other than giving my opinion on a fans forum.

Maybe many of the referees are new to this level but IMO that still makes them poor. I'm sure in time they will become more exprerienced and improve but right here right now the overall standard is poor. 

If the refereeing standard was good, I would say so. Refereeing isn't easy I accept and many fans only see the game from their own perspective. IMO we lack consistancy. One referee gives a penalty one week and the following week nothing.

I genuinly go to the matches each week not knowing what to expect from the referee. I don't expect the Referee to get every decision right just the majority of them with some consistancy.

 

I agree. Which is why it's important to get official feedback from the teams. They (referees) can't be expected to get better unless they take constructive criticism onboard. 

[Griff]

8 minutes ago, kiggy said:

I agree. Which is why it's important to get official feedback from the teams. They (referees) can't be expected to get better unless they take constructive criticism onboard. 

Feedback from competing teams is rarely objective.

[kiggy]

2 minutes ago, Griff said:

Feedback from competing teams is rarely objective.

It's normally backed up with video evidence. Which in itself can be subjective. But the point remains, that refs won't get better unless they analyse their own strengths/faults. 

[rich f]

I really appreciate the job refs do and couldn't do it myself but it's quite obvious, especially at championship level,that they need help and training to improve. It's so inconsistent and there are obvious howlers every week in every game. I'd like to think it evens itself out but again today I've witnessed a mess of a performance that got influenced by the crowd.

Thanks for doing it lads but there comes a point where its not good enough and they need help and training to improve.  The championship is wide open and some team are going to miss out because of bizarre decision and it shouldn't be like that.  They need more training and investment in them rather than everyone just been greatful they are there.

IMG is about raising standards and the first thing they need to do is train and improve the standard of refs. The game depends on it. A great performance can be destroyed by a bad decision and its happening more every week.

[kiggy]

1 hour ago, rich f said:

I really appreciate the job refs do and couldn't do it myself but it's quite obvious, especially at championship level,that they need help and training to improve. It's so inconsistent and there are obvious howlers every week in every game. I'd like to think it evens itself out but again today I've witnessed a mess of a performance that got influenced by the crowd.

Thanks for doing it lads but there comes a point where its not good enough and they need help and training to improve.  The championship is wide open and some team are going to miss out because of bizarre decision and it shouldn't be like that.  They need more training and investment in them rather than everyone just been greatful they are there.

IMG is about raising standards and the first thing they need to do is train and improve the standard of refs. The game depends on it. A great performance can be destroyed by a bad decision and its happening more every week.

There has been a contingent of french referees over in the UK recently, some sort of training, which can only be a good thing

 

[sentoffagain2]

   Barrow certainly had a good go at us today their supporters can be proud of the effort put in.I said earlier in the season they would not go down and i am sticking with it.We have a good record up there but today our players had to dig deep for the win.

[David Shepherd]

4 hours ago, Dovster said:

I also attend a good many Championship games and I'm sorry but must disagree with most of what you say.

What do I hope to achieve? Nothing, other than giving my opinion on a fans forum.

Maybe many of the referees are new to this level but IMO that still makes them poor. I'm sure in time they will become more exprerienced and improve but right here right now the overall standard is poor. 

If the refereeing standard was good, I would say so. Refereeing isn't easy I accept and many fans only see the game from their own perspective. IMO we lack consistancy. One referee gives a penalty one week and the following week nothing.

I genuinly go to the matches each week not knowing what to expect from the referee. I don't expect the Referee to get every decision right just the majority of them with some consistancy.

 

I get where you're coming from.

All I would say is that when I watch the Monday night game as a neutral, the ref always seems to get most decisions right. But when I'm stood behind the sticks at Post Office Road, they are useless and get everything wrong, because I'm wearing blue and white hooped glasses.

 

[Harry Stottle]

9 hours ago, David Shepherd said:

I'm wearing blue and white hooped glasses.

I should be able to pick you out easily next season David!

[Dovster]

9 hours ago, David Shepherd said:

I get where you're coming from.

All I would say is that when I watch the Monday night game as a neutral, the ref always seems to get most decisions right. But when I'm stood behind the sticks at Post Office Road, they are useless and get everything wrong, because I'm wearing blue and white hooped glasses.

 

I think we'll have to disagree.

From my personnal point of view, I have watched RL for 35 years. During that time the overall standard of refereeing has peaked and troughed. At the moment I think the standard is very low and you obviously don't. That's fine.

I like to think that I can see both sides and not every bad decision goes against my team.

[Fevrover]

21 hours ago, AJK66 said:

A good battling performance from Barrow. That made me feel a bit better about life.

A pity that Haven seemed to fall apart in the second half after a good start against the Bulls. Hopefully they can pull through this and we will have some cracking derbies to look forward to next year.

Good luck for rest of season, want Barra to stay up ,2nd best away after Batley.