What has for a long time annoyed me about forward passes is how many blatant forward passes are let go. I am not talking about the Bulls now, I am talking about what is clearly a policy of the officials. It is definitely not the case that they do not see the worst forward passes that we clearly see in the grounds and on TV, it MUST be the case that unless it is taking the pi$$, the policy is to ignore and let the game flow.
What was annoying in the extreme today was that within the first 20 minutes or so, Bentham called us for three forward passes, two of which were to say the least marginal at best, and they were each a key moment. They were not at insignificant times. This got the crowd's back up, (a) because we all think we know what the reffing policy is for forward passes, and so when it is seemingly disapplied, you raise an eyebrow. If it was just once, you could perhaps say maybe just maybe all the officials missed it but not three in a short space of time. And (b) because during the same spell, considerably more forward passes were ignored for Salford. Indeed they then scored a try under the sticks, which killed us off, from a blatantly obvious forward pass. As a try resulted, luckily (or unfortunately) everyone wil be able to se it when the highlight show comes out.
The crowd did indeed then start shouting "forward" for even flat Salford passes but only as the only way a crowd has of getting the point across to the referee. In other words it was Bentham and the touchies' fault that the crowd got a bit carried away with the cries of "forward", for not policing forward passes evenly, and for calling forward some key Bradford passes that would normally invariably be let go.
I don't suggest much Bentham and his team did it deliberately, but it happened, and I was as wound up as anyone else by it.