I agree, they have 5 people commentating on the game, the 2 main commentators don't know the most basic rules and the only person whom offers any analysis of the play (Carney) is drowned out because Cummins his having to explain every single decision. I actually find it very patronising as a viewer.

I'd find another guy to do the Eddie role (ie commentating on the game), have Carney as the summariser giving a bit of insight on the game, and Jon Wells doing the stats and analysis with the screen. Bill Arthur is fine doing his injury updates and dressing room stuff. The rest need binning asap.

You couldn't really fault Ganson in all truth. What did you make of Bentham?

From someone at the game, we assumed Swift was in touch but then Sky went on and on repeatedly showing it. Did he have a foot in touch or not???

Borderline.......it was 50/50 and personally id have been happy to see it given.

Looked as though his foot was on the line when going for the ball, as he made a dive to contact the ball his foot was in mid air over the line, what happened to benefit of the doubt tries.

Betham did better than Child but I think he went a bit crazy in the 10mins before half time. He got a bit carried away. Teams are never all onside on the line. He never gave it after that point when both us and Catalan were doing it second half!

My original post was aimed at the video ref, all be it a knee jerk reaction to an awfull decision. Bethan was right for the sin bin and should/could of used it earlier saints where proper taking the michael there. Grammar nazis feel free to point out any grammatical errors.

Having watched that no try several times now, the conclusion I've drawn is that Percival catches the ball, Taia then pulls at Percival's arms which forces the knock on. I can only guess this sis the version of events that was ruled as I can't see any other way the decision given was made.



It was probably harsh, but I thought Swift was harshly done too (both the video ref decision and the in touch decision) so it evened itself out.

I thought Bentham did OK - but I agree that the Sky team look for controversy, even when there isn't much. For the 'in touch' no try, the first camera angle seemed to clearly indicate that the foot hit the line and the TJ's flag went straight up. They showed this only a couple of times at most, they then found another angle in which it didn't look so clear and showed that a few more times. Correct decision from the TJ for me, but the Sky team seem to have a directive to pick any holes at all in every single decision.



And the video ref is now stuck with a rule which actually seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm not so sure. I'm convinced that the Catalan no try (tackled in the air) would have been given under last years rules where the ref just sent it upstairs and they had to sort it out - now they have to find 100% clear cut evidence the ref was wrong, we are going to get more of what we got last night, the evidence will often not be 100% clear, so they have to go with the ref. How many decisions are 100% clear in a game anyway?



I'm not going to comment on Childs performance as I obviously have a major bias there, but Bentham did pretty well last night, so I don't think we can say 'same crappy reffing' at all. New rules always need time to get used to - but nice to see two games with zero obstruction calls*, so maybe last years clampdown is now working!



*I did get a bit bored during the Saints game and even flicked to 6 nations a few times, so I may have missed one...

Ok, it's should have, not should of.

The potential issues that were raised when the new VR system was announced seem to be coming to fruition. Forcing the ref to guess does not make it any likelier that we will get a correct decision. Quite the opposite, and this goes against the whole purpose of the VR, which is to improve decision making.



In last night's game two "no try" calls were upheld by the VR because they could not "conclusively prove" he was wrong. However, if there isn't any proof in the first place that the ref was right then the system breaks down. If there is no evidence of a knock on or anything else that disproves the try then the try should stand rather than reverting back to the referee's guess.



And speaking of last night's game, they're a bunch of niggling cheaters Saints aren't they? Cunningham clearly coaches them to do it!