Russell Smith spoiled all bar 75 minutes of the Test yesterday with some utterly atrocious refereeing. Some woeful calls and he barely kept the sides 5m apart the entire game. Both sides took advantage of this to be continually offside throughout the game, lie all over the tackled player and holding onto the ball to slow down the play the ball.
If the RLIF are going to be fair dinkum about international football, it needs to develop a uniform set of rules and an international panel of professional referees, preferably neutral ones at that.
As for Great Britain, not enough imagination and the Test was again there for the taking. Leading 12-6 late in the game, they seemed content to simply look for the touch finder and to try and force an error from Australia in their own half to then set up for the field goal, instead of going for the jugular. Too much lateral movement, instead of hitting the advantage line and looking to offload, and poor ball handling. Having said that, the conditions were not conducive to attacking football.
For the Aussies, congratulations on a 3-0 clean sweep and congratulations to Chris Anderson for a magnificent coaching job to achieve this. It may not have been pretty to watch for large periods, but it was effective and did the job. Ricketson's try at the death was one of the best tries you'll ever see and that bit of brilliance was, in itself, worth getting up early to see (and eclipsed anything that the Toffball Cup Final could deliver).
