I think anyone's who anyone, even myself, would be at North Dean today. Upon the final whistle I had to retort. A very evenly contested game, ruined by incompetant adjudicating. In my humble opinion, every offical was completely out of their depth today. Some poor decisions allowing forward passes, knock-ons, blatently illegal moves in the scrums, and restrictions in open play. A potentially good semi final was ruined today, and I leave West Yorkshire sorely disappointed. Poor decisions to both teams restricted any type of free floeing rugby, and any chnace of entertainment. Good luck to Heath in the final, this wasn't the performance of a lifetime, but hopefully the venue of Twickenham doesn't spoil their chances of bringing the cup home to the North. Driffield won with ease last year, so it would be a great statement to reserve this title to this league.
Illegal moves in the scrums? 😂😂😂😂 you sound like an American, I only know one American and that’s the Driffield Prop. Could it be you? However the vocabulary and sentence structure suggest a more traditional education. Maybe privately educated, military family, living in Germany and educated in an American school in Berlin? But after the fall of the Berlin Wall your family relocated to Driffield, started a small business selling sauerkraut, resulting a significant increase in local gut health. Well done 👏
Whilst I do not want misinterpretating with the follow comments.
Heath were the best team in the day and their front five in particular won them the game.
That said the officials were well out of their depth and clueless at scrum time. Which the experienced props from Heath lapped up!!
I would not blame the players for being allowed to get away with changing their bind after the engage/set They had a free pass to bore in at illegal angles and drop their shoulders . All of which are penalty offences if correctly adjudicated.
But if you are the size of the Heath props and given a free rein, which they were. They quite correctly had a field day!
The penalties conceded by York at scrum time due to immense illegal pressure allowed Johnson to kick to the corner twice for the very impressive and excellently executed catch and drives that saw Heaths first half tries.
No parity of scrum ball was Yorks undoing and all though they were game and took Heath on, it would ultimately be the difference.
The then very puzzling two yellow cards for the York 8 either side of half time both at the instigation of the portly touch runner, were to be, the nail in the coffin for York.
The yellows were not for foul play! one for tackling the Heath scrum half with ball in his hand, having come through the center of a ruck. In my view not even a penalty! So where the grounds for a yellow came from ??
I together with the crowd including the Heath supporters in the vacinity were bamboozeld.
Despite this York hit back immediately after the break with another bit of Shackleton magic to make it 4 point game.
Almost immediately after his return to the field, the same touch judge again called the 8 for a penalty defending his own line, again to everyone’s amazement a second yellow and subsequently a red. Competition over.
So the officials had a disproportionate influence on the game, unfortunately for York.
Credit to Heath back row who approached the York 8 at the next restart and said that was poor reffing. Little solace for York and the disconsolate 8, but they also could not understand the decisions.
So back to first point Heath were the better side and even with competent officials, I think they would have won. But it would have been a hell of a lot closer, which would have been more representative of the tremendous effort both sides put in.
Good luck to Heath in the final!
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