Ganson Blunder?

By leedsrhinos.biz
May 7 2007

engage Super League match official Steve Ganson has today admitted his decision to award the Rhinos a try in the final moments of Sunday night's game against Bradford Bulls was the wrong one but who cares, we won......................................

Ganson Blunder? (We all love him apart from Bradford Bulls, and well everyone else is Super League...)

We all now know after watching that video footage again on Sky Sports that Jordan Tansey was off-side and the penalty should'nt of been given in the first place, but oh well, shall we here what Ganson has to say to Bradford eh'?

Ganson said: "After reviewing the video footage from the game it is clear that I made the wrong decision in awarding Jordan Tansey's try. In hindsight, I wish I had referred the decision to the video referee.

At the time, my focus was on ensuring that the Bradford Bulls players were not putting off the kicker, rather than ensuring all the Leeds Rhinos players were onside.

I didn't refer the decision to the video referee as both touch judges, who were stood behind the posts awaiting the conversion, had a good view of the grounding and I didn't feel the need to check for offside as it's very rare that players from the attacking side are in front of the kicker. However, the video footage shows that I was wrong not to do so as a number of Leeds players were offside.

I would now like to offer an unreserved apology to all those concerned, especially the players, officials and supporters of the Bradford Bulls.

Stuart Cummings, RFL Match Officials Director, said: "Steve is one of the most experienced officials in the game and is highly regarded around the world. He's big enough to accept he's made a mistake and was the first to hold his hands up this morning when we reviewed the video footage.

At each rugby game there are three teams, two competing clubs and a team of match officials, all of whom are human beings who can make mistakes at any stage during the course of the game.

Unfortunately some are more costly than others, and it is very regrettable that, in this case, it was so significant.