Castleford Tigers head coach Craig Lingard has called for action to be taken regarding how the video referee operates in Super League following Warrington Wolves’ controversial opening try on Friday night.
Warrington would go on to win 28-6 and the opening try was a brilliant one as young full-back Cai Taylor-Wray scored the first of his Super League career when he danced through from halfway before grounding, however, there were questions over whether the 18-year-old had grounded the ball short or not.
Video footage seemed inconclusive but after five minutes the try was awarded and Lingard has now bemoaned the lengthy process, arguing that for a decision to take that long then, “you’re looking for something that’s potentially not there”.
The on-field decision by referee Tom Grant was ‘No Try’, however, after a long delay, video referee Liam Rush overturned the decision to give Warrington the opening try. Asked for his thoughts on the decision, Craig Lingard addressed the media post-game, clearly still questioning the call.
He stated: “I think if you’re shopping a game for four or five minutes to decide whether it’s a try or not a try, you’re looking for something that’s potentially not there.
“I think if it goes up as a try and you’re looking four or five minutes to see if it’s a try or not, you’ve got to go with the referee’s decision and the same vice versa.”
Lingard would even go on to suggest a change to how the video referee operates, arguing that a time limit should be put on a decision to ensure that the game remains fast-flowing and without any unnecessary intervention.
The Castleford Tigers boss argued: “To stop the game as long as we did, it just takes all the momentum out of the game. Players were standing around, the crowd was getting restless, and we were too. I just think for things like that, the video referee, it’s got to be a quicker decision.
“Do we start putting a time limit on it and say if you can’t make a decision within 90 seconds or two minutes, whatever it is, then we’ll go with the on-field decision.
“I just think it was long, and if you’re looking for that long, you’re looking for a reason to change the on-field decision.”
Pushed further on what should be done, Lingard noted the fact games were starting to take longer and longer, something that was an issue in the recent past. He highlighted players aiming to ‘milk’ penalties as one of the key factors, arguing that there also needs to be a change in how those incidents are policed.
“Something needs to be done. We had this a few years back where an hour-and-a-half game would take 2 hours and 15 minutes and we wanted to speed it up and stop the stoppages.
“I think it’s starting to creep back in now. We’re seeing it with players staying down after contact to try and get a penalty and we’re stopping for two minutes to look at that. I’m a big believer that if the referee doesn’t see it then we should just crack on.”
At the time of the opening try, Warrington were down to 12 men after Luke Yates copped a sin bin after Liam Watts stayed down for a prolonged period, however, Lingard explained that he is “not a fan” of how cards are dished out in such manner.
“I know we benefitted from that today with a sin bin but I’m not a fan of it. Let’s just crack on. If the referee has missed it then we’ll deal with it later on and if the player has stayed down to earn a sin bin then they’ve got to go off for a HIA. There’s a reason people are staying down so maybe (forced HIA) will stop them doing that.”
