I've seen pens given for being offside at the kick off before now. The easiest way to avoid seeing them given? Don't be offside at the kick off, it's not rocket science.
He was inconsistent with his decisions, but then most refs are. All of the penalties he blew for were penalties, the simple answer is that we saw two teams with poor discipline today. The two big calls, which could have gone either way, were split 50/50. When Bateman lost the ball he could have called it as a knock-on, but gave us a vital pen that gave us a 2 point cushion. Then when BK had his run and the ball came free, again he could either have said play on or penalise wakey. You see those calls being made every game.
The only thing I would pull the ref up for is when Southern was injured and he didn't stop play. We had posession and Steve was crocked right in the middle of their defensive line. It was dangerous to allow play to contine, in fact Burgess almost ran right over the top of Steve and the physio. In the end up we actually went on to score from that play, so Wakefield have every right to feel aggreived imo.
