SATURDAY 3RD OCTOBER
engage Super League XIV Play Offs
St Helens v Wigan Warriors 5.30pm (SKY)
Ref S Ganson TJ T Martin TJ R Hicks VR I Smith RR B Thaler RTJ M Thomason MC D Campbell

You'll find most of us are actually quite happy he's in charge.

Indeed, best ref by far this year. Hope he officiates well on Saturday.

Agreed.

The only referee capable of taking on a game of such magnitude and the only referee in the league to be able to officate at this level.

I assume Leeds have their life long fan homer Silverwood from Dewsbury?

Yep.

Is that right do him and his kids have season tickets as well ?

I do think Ganson is the best ref in the country - although he is prone to having the off brain fart, he is definitely the most efficient when it comes down to stamping his authority on a match and keeping things under control.

Saying that, people who think that because he is from St Helens and that it is common knowledge that he had a season ticket when he was a kid, will benefit us in any way is mistaken. It has seemed that, in the handful of games he has officiated us, the majority of 50/50 calls seem to go against us, this possibly being down to Ganson subconciously avoiding any claim of bias.

If a ref is in charge of a match involving HIS team, it is nigh on impossible for him to call it completely down the middle. The only way to prevent it is to outlaw it totally.

Exactly. He over compensates for his alleged bias by being a b1tch when it comes to the 50/50 calls.

Absolutely correct and Ganson can't win either way on this because whoever wins, the other team will look at reasons why Ganson would be to blame.

It makes a sideshow of the whole deal and the sooner we outlaw this the better.

That being said, I hope either way that the result of Saturdays match (of course, preferably a Saints win

) will come down to one team being better than the other and the referee's impartiallity (is that a word?) not coming into question.

Despite being the best ref in the comp, there is a tendancy for Ganson to make as many headlines after 80 minutes as the two sides that took part.

Yup- They even have their faces painted blue and amber on match days

Outlawing it now would look like an admition of bias by the rfl. They have dug themselves into a hole so business as usual at redhall

Nonsense. As an active ref who frequently refs the team he not only played for but founded, I can be categoric in saying that there is no question that any such internal debate about decisions takes place. The great majority of decisions are reactions. You no more think about which way to call something than you think about how to blow your whistle. You just give the decision. The game is too fast for some sort of considered thought like "ooh, well that could go either way, but I used to support these, so I should give it here...". Basically, the fact that you're blowing your whistle means that you think you've spotted an offence, and if you think that, then you know which way the decision's going well before any second-order thought processes about perceived bias.

The only people who are biased are fans, who almost always perceive 50-50 decisions going against them. And it wouldn't matter who the ref was, they still would.