Official West Hartlepool RFC

Again - again. Well done lads from the U16's

R&O I was too busy talking to even notice oldge was injured :-D

Well done lads great game - I spent most of extra time pacing the car park so missed all of the "incidents" that'll teach me!



Post Edited (27-04-06 07:51)

HBL....

regarding "that" decision....is your problem that you think it was a knock on or that advantage was signalled then that decision reversed?

:-! contriversial decisions west win and who is involved d sawyer!

i see your point on decision reversed....but had i not read the article i mentioned above i didn't think if you dropped a ball and it hit your leg it was still a knock on? did you?

as for hands in the ruck.....the spoiling tactics of horden in the 2nd half when we had several surges close to the line were unreal! they did anything to kill the ball and make sure we didn't score....if your winger hadn't already gone to the bin someone else would have.

as for stamping incident...was on other side from me so didn't see it. if its as you describe then a sending off would have been appropriate but i think the fact he ran off the field shouldn't have made a difference....surely he could still have been sent off and his replacement removed from the field?

a couple of points:

whether it was a high tackle or not its very harsh to penalise someone who is injured for holding on to the ball. when i've seen something like that happen before the ref usually blows straight away from a scrum, recognising that the player barely knows where he is let alone what he's doing with the ball.

about the knock on - like El Pedro said, it defintely hit his foot before it hit the ground, the question is whether that is a knock on or not. I don't think it should be but the article EP linked above said it is. People are still asking why Chris Wray put his arm up and then down again even though that has already been answered - he was going to give the knock on but Dave Sawyer (who was a lot closer) told him it had come off his leg.

not sure about R&O's assessment of the penalty count. I thought it was about even. Horden got away with a lot of cynical ball killing, particlarly during the period of west pressure at the end of normal time.

I also thought there were far too many hangers on wandering up and down the west touchline. If they hadn't all been there then the scenes at the end wouldn't have been as bad. We could have got ourselves in trouble wih celebrations like that - refs don't like it and fortunately Chris Wray seemed to agree with HBL that passions were just running high. other refs may have taken some sort of action

Finally, I agree with all the comments about Tom Dixon, he was superb and had a huge impact when he came on.

I also think its a bit pathetic for Horden to be going down the same old route of blaming Dave Sawyer. After the punch up in the second half he came on to identify our winger who probably would have got away with his part in the fracas as I don't think Chris had seen it. How did that fit into his "bring down Horden at all costs" plan?

HBL, stop bleating. The Stags have performed well all season so stop making excuses:oP

If it hit his hand then his leg it is a knock on

i don't think there's much point getting into every little decision in the game. i just wanted to open a sensible debate about the "knock-on" and clarify what the actual law is.

i thought the officials, on the whole, did a decent job. with a lot at stake they are bound to be criticised so are under a lot of pressure. so well done to chris and his TJs.

don't want to take anything away from a great night for hartlepool & district rugby. more games like this with a big crowd and passions running high are just what we need for the towns rugby.

i was talking about the game on the whole....say that last incident didn't happen and horden won. i wouldn't be laying blame at the officials door. for the majority of the game i thought they did well. not saying i agreed with every decision but hey...thats rugby.

it was a great atmosphere. If Roy's "west v rovers should be played on a sunday" idea is a non starter, what about playing on the friday or saturday evening? Obviously west don't have floodlights yet but the friarage fixture could be done as a trial run.

Good Morning Everyone,

Maybe it's time to put this to bed. Let's go through the point chronologically;

Hands in the Ruck - Both sides had been guilty of slowing the ball down, after a really good clean start. I pulled both captains together and told them that the NEXT perpetrator would go to the bin. I just happened that at the next breakdown, the Horden 14 was guilty. So no inconsistency there. I suspect that the count for hands in also included holding on, so maybe that was poor signalling from me.

Dangerous Tackle - The winger was "double teamed" by a good aggressive tackle, and not a dangerous one. He did go to the ground, and had the wherewithall to be able to hold onto the ball, then play it backwards away from a rucking horden foot. He was injured, but this was only obvious at the break of play.

Stamping - My TJ did see a stamping, but couldn't identify the number. This happens. The play had moved up the hill around sixty metres, but he did the right thing by flagging in, and play was returned with a penalty to Horden. A red card would have ensued, had we known the number.

Knock On - Or in this case, no knock on, backed up by video evidence. My first reaction was a knock on, hence the raised arm. However, within a few paces my TJ, who was much closer ,signalled play on. I was quite happy at this, as we were using hand signals all evening between the team of three, with no problems. If we'd been miked up, my arm would have stayed down. Next year we may have to consider using mike's. None of the players appeared to hesitate, and played on as they should without hearing a whistle.

Now to the crux. In my opinion, the ultimate reason for Horden not winning was removing Steve Black. He had been dominating lineouts all evening, winning his own and disrupting the West throw. Once he went off, the whole game changed. Horden lost four or their own throws on the trot, and hence momentum. So then , if one man made the difference last night it was Steve Black, not one of the officials.

Some general comments to close; Last night showed that the Pyman Cup has returned to it's former glory, in that it means something to win it. Yet again Horden players showed what a good team they are by being able to take defeat with such grace after obvious disappointment. Disappointment at the reaction of the West sidelines, showing a football mentality with the reaction the the last try.