He gave a couple of things our way. Hicks completely lost control and the players played him for a fool.

I spoke to Jon Sharp last week at Headingly, he's on the ref's judiciary committee and he said he argued with Ian Smith the vid ref regarding the 'try' which cost Catalan the game. He shook his head in dismay at the overall standard of refereeing in Superleague. These ref's really do have some effect on the outcome of games one way or another.

I think it was more ironic with his arrogance that he could carry on after the injury

I don't think apart from from the second half kick off which they launched into the East stand he didn't give a single penalty for offside all day, there were times (both teams to be fair) when every player in the defensive line was in front of the ref, but still no penalty.

I really liked it when a kick out on the full was given as a scrum, andd then changed when the players told him.



I hope his injury isn't serious, but I don't want to see him officiate us again.

Because he was one, I believe.

Would also like to know why hardly any of the refs take any notice of the muppets with the flags on the touchlines, or more importantly why they employ blind touch judges, because they certainly don't seem to see much. As for yesterdays game it seemed he listened to the Salford players, twice I saw a Salford player speak to the ref and the ref agreed, once putting the Hull player on report. Surely that can't be right.

I used to be one, I know what it's like in the middle







You should try listening to them more then

It was a poor performance from Mr Hicks.



Out of interest what is the rule if a player is fighting to get his arms free for an off-load and the balls pops out because the defender is trying to stop it? Surely as a defender you have every right to wrap the ball up?

That one I will give you. So out of the thousands of games that have been played in Superleague, we've managed to come up with one that may have been decided by a refere error. That's a pretty good strike rate in anyone's book.

Gnason had an influence of the result of the game, in the same way that an injury, the prevailing weather or any other number of things may have an influence. A game is decided by the 34 players on the field and possibly their respective coaches

There is a continuing problem with attracting new referees into the game, there's an even bigger problem in retaining them. It's all well & good to say that full-time Superleague refs are well remunerated and there's not much argument from me there. The problem is the quantity of referees rising to the top, get the numbers right and invariably the quality will improve too.



Stand on the touchline of some youth matches and listen to the abuse aimed at, quite often young, referees. There aren't enough amateur officials to ensure impartial touch judges at all but the highest level, most of the "pro" officials also take their share of amateur games too, at all age levels. When I lived in Hull I often refereed schools matches on a Wednesday afternoon, simply because I could usually blag a couple of hours away from my job to do it. It was pointed out to me on many occasions that the kids appreciated being refereed by a qualified official, as opposed to a teacher from one team in th first half and the other team's teacher taking over the 2nd half.



I am of the opinion that Stuart Cummings has passed his shelf-life. I'm disappointed that referees are not more accountable for their decisions and even more disappointed when they close ranks and a wall of silence goes up. I know that referees are assessed at each game, by each club and also by an RFL referee's assessor. Copies of the assessments used to be sent to referees and tables were produced of where the referee stood in comparison to his contemporaries. I see no reason for these tables to remain a secret. We have OPTA stats on how often a player farts during a game, why should a referee's performance be any different?



The full-time refs should personally review each match DVD and appraise not only their own performances but also those of their colleagues. If flaws in their performances are evident, they should be given extra coaching to eliminate them and if it becomes obvious that they are finding it difficult, then drop them down a league. But you can only do that if you have someone ready to replace him and that only comes with improving recruitment and retention