Tony_At_Wuss wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2026 9:27 pm
We had Andy Wigley last week - he and his assistants were appalling. The standard of officiating in this league is generally very poor. I am always so pleased to see Sara Cox as our referee - I know that we are going to see a brilliant performance when she is involved.
Sara Cox is very good and is one of the few referees who doesn’t get fooled by players trying to milk penalties. Actually, the ref yesterday was decent in that regard too.
To be fair, I was probably over the top in criticising the ref yesterday - however, I still think some of the decisions in that final passage of play looked dubious. I agree with Bluesman about the rolling maul - if the attacking team win the line out and set it up well, there’s nothing that the defensive team can do about it - especially as referees don’t seem to bother penalising the obstruction that often occurs from the attacking side when line-out lifters block opposing players who are trying to stop the maul by coming through the middle.
Yikes, reading these last few comments is more like a Premier league football forum where the ref is somehow at the heart of every teams failings.
I'm sure ref's have made mistakes but rugby is a very difficult and subjective game to referee, particularly without a TMO.
One of the reasons I prefer watching Stortford play rugby than football is the ref doesn't get dogs abuse from the players and fans for simply doing his job to the best of his abilities. Would be sad if abusing officials became part of rugby.
jblee wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2026 10:37 am
If only the officials were like players , coaches and fans and never made mistakes eh?
That’s a fair point. Talking about yesterday’s game specifically, if Donny had just been accurate with their ball retention after that final scrum then we take the referee out of the equation. For the number 8 to attempt a one-out carry off the back of a scrum in the last play of the game when the opposition’s only chance to get back in it was forcing a turnover, was a stupidly risky play. We were asking for trouble and unfortunately got it. Had Coventry gone 80 metres and won the game then that would have been easier to take - we gifted it to them on a plate by being inaccurate.
Having watched Pirates’ win over Chinnor live on a rare trip home, I feel that frustration with the officials is less about the refs than the “assistant refs”, who to be honest really deserve their previous job title as they seem to be little more than touch judges.
There were a couple of outrageous scrum penalties where the ref was on the opposite side of the scrum, when anyone could see what happened except apparently his “assistant”. Forward passes near the touchline were missed as well.