In most games but notably the panthers, dragons, raiders, rabbits and last night's game the opposition has been allowed to assault us in the ruck whether it be second efforts, hands on the ball or even just laying on top of the ball carrier. Yet it seems like once we have 2 in the tackle the ref wants to call held and for us to move away quickly, if not, penalty. They're also then allowed to take 2 steps forward and 1 step to the side to make our markers not square.
Would also like to point out that the only reason we got a penalty against the dragons was because Kenny stayed down after an obvious crusher tackle. If it wasn't for Kenny hamming it up I believe we would have gone 80 minutes without receiving a penalty.
It's amazing how teams all of a sudden become extremely disciplined against us.
You forgot the Sharks game too.........not only were they allowed to assault us in the ruck but they were at least 5 metres offside most of the game. Probably the worst i've ever seen in a game tbh.
It was astonishing though that the way that the Dogs channelled the QLD origin team last night that they didn't concede one penalty in 40 mins........Our penalties came early for a professional foul against us and then a few right before half time as they didn't want us to score.......otherwise for like 75 minutes the Dogs were perfect!
Just a continuation of the treatment from last year - but nothing is said in the press conferences so nothing will change
He has digs in the press conference all the time, he doesn't need to abuse the refs to get his point across.
Stats just further proving the point that the refs seems to favour the team behind to even the game up.
Except when it is us, we get SFA of them anytime.
What about when Guth got held up for about a week on the 5th tackle when Normie then grubered, no penalty for us but that merkin Perenara couldn't wait to blow an offside penalty. Never saw a replay either.
I don't for a minute believe they do it deliberately but i still maintain that they unconsciously know the teams that are seen as "tough" or "hard" and referee accordingly.
Teams like the Dogs, Storm and Sharks have built themselves this way over periods of time so they can infringe a lot more because that is their "normal" play.
Teams like us, Tigers and Newcastle just can't get away with it because we haven't earned it in the referees eyes or public opinion.
With that comes our (supporters) mind set that we are too small and need to get BIG players to compensate. While this may be true that we need a bigger body to compliment the rest of our pack we also need to cut out the silly errors that are in our game that cause us to continually put the team under pressure and defend for longer periods which fatigues us which leads to us getting dominated more in tackles.
We have won 9 games this year, we are heading in the right direction and injuries have been incredibly cruel to us this year. Pritchard will bring some size when he returns as will Vave.
Are we contenders this year? No way. Could we make the finals and fluke a week 1 win against any of the bottom 4, absolutely! Our gaol this year is to make the finals and considering the year that was last year and not knowing our cap position until late in the season making the finals is a massive step and confidence boost. Next year with the current squad and signings we will be more competitive and i am positive the signings haven't stopped. Will we get a JWH or Fafita type prop? Probably not cause they are few and far between but Evans is a start.
Oh and i do think we were offside on that play, looked on the replay like a couple of them went too early.........
