Becoming a joke now isn't it?

Its not as exciting as knee jerking on here but Leeds are going through a patch of poor form (especially some key players like sir kev)...the reality is we're neither as bad as we currently appear nor as good as we were at the start of the season.



At least unlike some previous seasons our defence seems to be keeping us in games when we're poor

Why are refs refering every try to look for an obstruction...the cas try that was given never even looked like a hint of an obstruction yet they referred it to try and find one?

Absolutely !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



It is bluddy farcical now...making a mockery of the game. Sutcliffe scored last night and Dorn just scored right now.



Something needs to be done ....

Everyone is frustrated including most of the players. Something else annoying me is refs increasing inability to award a try without going to video ref

The Dorn one was an easy no try decision. A blatant obstruction by the Cas dummy runner (Hauraki?). He was in front of the ball and interfered with play by blocking the run of a defender to the ball carrier.

Had the dummy runner ran at the opposite shoulder of the defender it'd have been fine and given as a try.



It's very easy not to concede obstruction penalties.

The interpretation at the moment is pretty clear. If you have the ball in your possession and you come around the back of one of your own players, it's obstruction whether a tackler is impeded or not.



It's farcical, but it is what it is and was perfectly applied in relation to Sutcliffe's no try last night.



The problem is that it isn't the interpretation we necessarily started the season with, which gave referees and VRs a lot more freedom to decide whether a defender had been obstructed or not.



In some ways, the players have brought this on themselves with their constant appealing after every try scored with a dummy runner involved. Shenton in the Leeds game for example, who complained after at least two of Leeds tries that he had been obstructed when he hadn't.



Everyone now knows what the interpretation is. It needs players to be smart enough to adapt to it.

It's a joke. Sides get away with most of these "obstructions" unless they're unfortunate enough to score.

It would seem to be that simple but the rules judgements to be evolving as the season is progressing.



I would say that the interpretation on-field doesn't take into account how far away the player is that you run behind. In the case of Sutcliffe's try Bailey was yards away from him completely out of play. I strongly suspect that if the Suttcliffe try had gone to the VR he would have awarded the try. The VR's seem to be actually looking for obstruction or sticking riggidly to the rule that passing behind a player in motion is okay, running past him and passing is not. But in most of those cases the player "obstructing" is a dummy runner in the attacking line and does get in the way to some degree.

As for Shenton's complaints - both were looked at and rightly declined by the video ref.



It's a shame, because I was impressed early season by the reasonable quality of the refereeing and the relatively low penalty counts. Now the men in the middle have a new toy to play with and they are blowing the pea out of their whistles.

Sorry if this has been covered already as I've not read the full thread, but if the obstruction problem that is plaguing our game at the moment is so 'simple to resolve' why is EVERY team getting pinged for it week after week?



Why hasn't EVERY coach managed to coach it out of their respective teams?



I think the problem is far, far deeper than your limited knowledge makes out.

This phrase 'pinged' needs getting rid of, along with 'stanza', 'for mine' and many others.

Probably not in their interests to. Unless a try is scored and a video ref happens to be present, the use of dummy runners remains a potent weapon. And even then, the odd try gets awarded under circumstances very similar to ones where a score was disallowed, often in the same game.