Round 18 Discussion

[Dexter]

What spastics the knights are.
How do you lose that .

If i was Nathan Brown I would be begging for the sack

 

[Super Freak]

The biggest kick of his career, and he produces that.

 

[Alec]

Gotta feel sorry for the Knights, but that was hillarious

 

[I bleed Maroon]

What the flying **** was that. Newcastle could write a bible on fucking things up

 

[jarro65]

Brock Lamb will be on suicide watch tonight [emoji50]

Such a shame for the Knights, they did just about enough to win that game.

 

[Browny]

Watch them play their best game ever against us next week tho

 

[GCBRONCO]

Newcastle folded under pressure quicker then Superman folds on laundry day.

 

[I bleed Maroon]

Watch them play their best game ever against us next week tho

Nah no chance. If Boyd and Milf are both back, we might even hit 50

 

[Horseheadsup]

Watch them play their best game ever against us next week tho

Naturally..

 

[GCBRONCO]

Poor lamb but that has Paul Cariage moment written all over it.

 

[Big Pete]

That penalty leading into the Montoya try seemed suss. Why would any Knights player be offside? It was second tackle after the Knights had bombed to the corner, unless a player over-shot the mark how would any player be off-side in that instance? I can't help but feel the Bulldogs got an undeserved piggyback.

The Bulldogs didn't deserve to win.

 

[Browny]

I thought the signal was high tackle but I had NFI what it was really for

 

[CaptainHook]

Wow the Fox panel just openly talked about the trend of penalty counts evening up

Apparently Phil Gould did the same thing over on Channel Nine after the Rabbitohs game.

I didn't see the Burgess play the ball howler or what penalties were given but Gould said the following post-match:

‘’The referees are told to give 16 penalties a game, that’s their marker, that’ their KPI,’’ he told Peter Sterling and James Bracey after the match.

‘’Eight-all, nine-seven, that’s their KPI, that’s what they look for. You’ve got to be really bad to concede more than that or to get less than that.

That's pretty incredible. I'm surprised there hasn't been some blowback from the NRL.

I wonder if he's got evidence that the NRL instruct referees to keep even penalty counts. Match officials going into a game with a preconceived ideas of dishing out penalties is a scary thought.

The full article is here: http://wwos.nine.com.au/2017/07/08/07/20/phil-gould-says-nrl-is-totally-over-refereed

 

[Kimlo]

Apparently Phil Gould did the same thing over on Channel Nine after the Rabbitohs game.

I didn't see the Burgess play the ball howler or what penalties were given but Gould said the following post-match:



That's pretty incredible. I'm surprised there hasn't been some blowback from the NRL.

I wonder if he's got evidence that the NRL instruct referees to keep even penalty counts. Match officials going into a game with a preconceived ideas of dishing out penalties is a scary thought.

The full article is here: http://wwos.nine.com.au/2017/07/08/07/20/phil-gould-says-nrl-is-totally-over-refereed

That's an absolute disgrace. How is that not game-fixing?

 

[Big Pete]

The silence is deafening from the NRL, if that insinuation was made in another code there would be all sorts of repercussions.

 

[CaptainHook]

The silence is deafening from the NRL, if that insinuation was made in another code there would be all sorts of repercussions.

Agreed. I suspect what will happen is that the NRL and referees will over correct this week and we'll see a stack of uneven penalty counts.

Y'know just to prove that the NRL is impervious to comments like Gould's. Then it's back to business as usual the week after.

 

[Big Pete]

It's also hypocrisy of the first order. Phil would be lining up to tell us how one team wasn't that much worse than the other if the penalty counts weren't so even.

I do agree with him in this instance, but I still think he's just an old windbag.

The point about pocket referees was spot on. What good are they when a guy like George Burgess can get away with playing the ball while facing the sideline? The play the ball is a fundamental part of the game, it's what separated Rugby League from Rugby Union and the referees have been giving players far too much lee-way.

I couldn't believe it on Sunday when the Knights were ready to go for the short kick off, the game had to be held up so the pocket referee could get in position. Why are we slowing the game down for arbitrary reasons? The whole point of Rugby League is that it's a faster version of Rugby Union and yet in a few areas the game is a lot slower.

It's not all doom and gloom though. At the very least, the referees are finally making players go back and play the ball on the mark. It was an area that was really hurting the game, especially when teams would take advantage of the markers.