Chris Kendall defended for forgetting signal last tackle by former official

After Sunday’s games between Leeds Rhinos and Leigh Leopards, Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity and Salford Red Devils and St Helens, there was an awful lot of talk about officials.

One instance centred around Chris Kendall, one of the top officials in the league given he was recently given control of a Challenge Cup semi-final.

Kendall seemingly forgot to raise his hand at one point during the clash at the MKM Stadium between Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity to signal the last tackle.

As fans highlighted this, former official Ian Smith defended Kendall and explained that it is harder than it looks.

“Oh yes many times mate, well probably half a dozen in my career at least,” Smith said on social media.

“You have so much going around in your head with tacklers, markers, tens etc and it’s quite easy to momentarily forget the tackle count.

“The touch judges are also counting just in case the ref gets it wrong, the difficulty for a TJ is when the ref calls 5 and last and puts his hand up because the TJ can’t really come in then.”

Despite this, Salford boss Paul Rowley labelled Chris Kendall one of the best officials in the league as he questioned why Salford never get him or Liam Moore all the while he said Jack Smith was a disgrace.

“It’s so hard. If we’d have won the game, I’d come in and say probably exactly the same thing. I thought the officials were a disgrace. I think Jack, I’ve watched him on telly, he’s been a disgrace a few times this year, one for us at Warrington at home. So three games in a row now we’ve been absolutely let down,” he said on the club’s website.

“So clearly Kendall and Liam Moore are the best two refs who get all the cup finals, we don’t get them too much so we must6 be deemed poor quality games.

“It’s kind of gloves off, I’m usually quite measured and take my time I don’t like to criticise because we’ve lost obviously, but again, I’d have said the same thing in victory.

“Games are very much decided by officials quite often and the obvious response to that will be, ‘they don’t miss a tackle’, ‘they don’t do a forward pass’, and no they don’t, but they don’t get batted 25 times a game either so a lot of it is just visual.

“Then when you’ve got a bright pink boot four foot in front of you on a touchline, then you would hope that somebody competent would make the right decision. As a result of that the sequence continues and we get a man in the bin and then there’s a try scored from a knock on.”