Official West Hartlepool RFC

Very surprised to see the attack on the referee in the night Mail and on a Horden player. Normally Mr Kelly is the first one to complain when any of us have the audacity to mention a referee's performance.
Is there one rule for Rovers games and another for everyone else's?

Well i have to say that the blaming of the referee is a disgrace, if anything (and i am being honest here) Horden were the team who were badly done.


We had 2 clear tries disallowed but as most can apreciate Mr Hodgson like other referees cant be in every position to see the ball being grounded, though he really should heve seen Graig Gilmours blatant try.

If any other team hints at pointing blame at referees certain people from other clubs are quick to rubbish those claims but for Rovers its quite acceptable.

Also the incident with our Hooker who was named in the paper has not been fully explained, like any team mate who sees any oposition player stamping on your team mates head i am sure that the same reaction would occour, but we dont twist on about things like that, we just get on with it an leave it at that.

As for your comparison to Mr Davis Codheed you must be joking... he has a red card list as long as the A1, and has had more RFU appointments than England have had coaches!!

As for the way we play, Horden never get any credit from the Townies, after all is only West who have beaten us this season out of the Hartlepool teams and Rovers have failed THREE times!!

Granted League position is all that counts though.

I thought it was a bit off putting it all in the paper like it was, not the place to be honest in that context. There is a fair amount of ill feeling between the two clubs at the min and the story did not help that.

If thats what westgarth said, then that's what will get put in the paper isn't it?

Whippet racer should keep his mouth shut about Horden never having a go at the ref. Their fans are the worst ref-abusers in the area and it was only last week when Dave Turner was in the mail saying "I don't normally criticise refs, but..." and went on to criticise the ref.

Why is this being discussed on here shouldn't it be discussed on the Rovers site

Your right it should be ... anyway i have nothing more to discuss on the matter, as far as i am concerned its over, just seems to be sour grapes AGAIN with certain people from Rovers!!

MikeyBoy, sounded like Rovers were the worst ref-abuses on Saturday, there was an offical at Hordens previous game that mentioned how bad that ref was but hey if thats what Mr Turner said then thats what will get put in the paper.


Its all water under the bridge now so leave it at that eh?

as you can tell i am not one for bickering
;-)

i was intrigued by the quote in last nights mail from horden...."we should have beaten west at their place as well"....

how do you work that out? 29-10? but yeah horden SHOULD have won....get real

fair play for some good results against hartlepool teams this season but this was pushing it a bit!

I saw the game at Brinkburn and Hordle played well fair enough but the better team won on the day

I think Davy was being a bit tongue in cheek. West were good value for the win at their place.
Are there any worse losers than Rovers?

The Ams don't win many :oD:oD:oD:oD

Most Rovers supporters where right beside that touch line when the "incident" occured with the Hooker.

Hordens No.5 was on the wrong side and was getting a shoeing (rightly so), I thought mostly to the back, the Horden hooker came in from the side took a man out and then gave him a couple of good uns for the stamp (again fair enough). What insenced most was that the referee blew his whistle, immediatly sent the Horden Hooker away and then dealt with an injury to Gareth Foreman. When play resumed after the Horden Hooker and Rovers Prop where spoken to, it was a scrum.

Now surely this should have been either:

1. Penalty to Horden for Rovers stamping and a yellow card for offending Rovers player (if it was to the head).
2. Penalty to Rovers, Horden Hooker coming in from the side.
3. Penalty Rovers, for the punches, yellow card Horden Hooker.

The ref claimed he didn't see the incident but was right there on the spot and identified the Horden Hooker by sending him away when the whistle went.

Looked very much like a cop out.

I didn't slag off the referee Mr Banana, Mrs WPA.

I did not see THE incident everyone was going on about because unfortunately hundreds of people stood in front of me so therefore I was unable to get a proper view and write about it properly.

I interviewed Kevin Westgarth after the game who was unhappy about the referee's performance and I reported his views. I also wrote that Westgarth did not blame the referee for his team's defeat and I never heard anyone from Rovers blame the ref.

By the way, for the record, I don't think Dave Turner's comment was tongue in cheek about winning at Brinkburn

I can second Tragics version of events:

I was running touch and was within 5m of the ruck.

The Horden player after 4 or 5 rucks in quick succession where Rovers made ground dived straight over the top to kill the ball so as to prevent a try. (Illegal, but streetwise).

The Rovers forwards came in and rucked his back and legs and at no time was the Horden player unable to roll away, if he wanted to he could have got himself off the ball at anytime. (Brave, hard or stupid).

The Horden hooker seemingly incensed at the shoeing walked around the ruck shoved a Rovers player and started throwing punches. (Understandable if your teammate is getting shoed).

The ref blew as soon as the punches were thrown.

Both the Rovers prop who got punched and the Horden hooker were sent to the 22 while an injury was attended to.

The ref then spoke to both players and awarded a scrum.

Mr Westgarth then asked the referee a question about what was awarded and the ref called him over. A conversation took place out of my earshot and afterwards the game restarted with a scrum much to the annoyance of the Rovers spectators.