What he said.
Great day, great event and great show by the slowly improving Bulls.
The "obstruction", having watched it several times on vid, was a blatant one. Stevo is clearly blind, as he said Newton had 'picked the wrong man' - but this was rubbish, Newton was c;early watching the ball which had already been passed before the player made contact with Newton. It is clear on the replay that Newton would - to say the least - comfortably have got to the gap through which the player ran and I can't believe Kear or anyone is whinging about it, if indeed they are.
Anyway, it is certainly true that we've had lesser "obstructions" awarded against us so some you win, some you lose, but at the very least it was a call that the VR was perfectly entitled to make.
I too was a bit baffled by how every time a Wakey ball came loose it was a penalty, but the ref was on the spot and had a better view than any of us, so again they were calls he was entitled to make. It is worth contrasting those calls with some of the decisions NOT called as penalties on the Sunday, though.
It seems clear to me that there is such a grey area here, and the rewards of getting away with a ball steal, compared with the risks of getting caught, have led us to a situation where pretty much all players will dislodge the ball at every opportunity, they obviously see it as standard to get a hand on the abll at any tackle and try to pull it free, and this is pretty much tolerated by the officials. We copped for an unusually intolerant spell, for some weird reason, that's all, but if the RFL don't want ball stealing they need to have a close look at what is actually going on.
All in all MM was an outstanding event for rugby league, got us wall to wall on Sky and afaik almost universal media praise for those who reported on it, and positive feedback from those who attended it. A major Rugby League event, (of which there are very few) where RL takes over a major city for a weekend and takes over a major sports channel for two days. I can't see what there is not to be positive about.
And to ice the cake, those whingeing lumps Graham and Cunningham (both of whom did indeed play is if they were "not fussed") got roundly stuffed by the Wigan. Serves them right.
Great day, great event and great show by the slowly improving Bulls.
The "obstruction", having watched it several times on vid, was a blatant one. Stevo is clearly blind, as he said Newton had 'picked the wrong man' - but this was rubbish, Newton was c;early watching the ball which had already been passed before the player made contact with Newton. It is clear on the replay that Newton would - to say the least - comfortably have got to the gap through which the player ran and I can't believe Kear or anyone is whinging about it, if indeed they are.
Anyway, it is certainly true that we've had lesser "obstructions" awarded against us so some you win, some you lose, but at the very least it was a call that the VR was perfectly entitled to make.
I too was a bit baffled by how every time a Wakey ball came loose it was a penalty, but the ref was on the spot and had a better view than any of us, so again they were calls he was entitled to make. It is worth contrasting those calls with some of the decisions NOT called as penalties on the Sunday, though.
It seems clear to me that there is such a grey area here, and the rewards of getting away with a ball steal, compared with the risks of getting caught, have led us to a situation where pretty much all players will dislodge the ball at every opportunity, they obviously see it as standard to get a hand on the abll at any tackle and try to pull it free, and this is pretty much tolerated by the officials. We copped for an unusually intolerant spell, for some weird reason, that's all, but if the RFL don't want ball stealing they need to have a close look at what is actually going on.
All in all MM was an outstanding event for rugby league, got us wall to wall on Sky and afaik almost universal media praise for those who reported on it, and positive feedback from those who attended it. A major Rugby League event, (of which there are very few) where RL takes over a major city for a weekend and takes over a major sports channel for two days. I can't see what there is not to be positive about.
And to ice the cake, those whingeing lumps Graham and Cunningham (both of whom did indeed play is if they were "not fussed") got roundly stuffed by the Wigan. Serves them right.
