Father Ted wrote:
Re the Goulding into touch.
I thought the rule was that tackling players are allowed to push a ball carrying player into touch.
Should a team mate of the ball carrier start to push and support his collegue the referee will call held.
Once Charnley started to push against the Wire players Bentham would have called "Held".
That a moment later Goulding's foot hit the touch line Bentham had no option but to give a penalty as WirI players had not stopped but continued to push.
That's as I understand the rule.
This decision really irked me. Goulding went into touch as he got to his feet, it is not the responsibility of the defending side to keep his feet in the field of play. The touch judge called this one right (never thought I'd type those words). The only dragging I saw was someone (Charnley?) dragging Riley off Goulding. It also seems a little inconsistent inasmuch as if Goulding had off-loaded, it would have just gone back to the play the ball.
I watched the game again last night to see how it was without the stress of it all, and I more agree with those neutrals saying it was a classic. Neither team on top of their game, but a good old brutal game of RL. On 2nd viewing I don't think we had as much go against us as I did on Friday night, but I still think Wigan got away with a bit more than we did (namely: the above; the legs over horizontal on The Hodge in the last minute, and; the 'discretionary' warning that I felt was not enforced).