Jake Connor slams yellow card for spoiling Challenge Cup Final

In the first Challenge Cup Final without Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, Warrington Wolves and St Helens since 1986 we saw the first yellow card in a Challenge Cup Final since 2001 as Leigh Leopards and Hull KR battled it out at Wembley Stadium.

Elliot Minchella was yellow carded for a late hit on Ben Reynolds but that wasn’t the end of the cards this weekend.

Matty English was sin binned for a cannon ball tackle as Huddersfield Giants battled St Helens and then Joe Greenwood was sent off.

Following this, teammate Jake Connor said that these cards ruin games including with the Challenge Cup Final.

“I’d just like to see, even with the Challenge Cup, what I’ve seen on the weekend with the sin bin, whether it’s a sin bin or not, just sometimes just let it be settled after the game,” he said on BBC Radio Leeds.

“Sometimes it spoils a good game and you don’t want to see that. Sometimes you don’t want to play in that. If he’s going to get banned then ban him after the game, what difference does it make?

“If it’s clear, clear red, then you can hold your hands up. But I’m not sure on that. I’d like some refs to deal with it in a different way, I think, personally.”

This comes as Ian Watson said he might talk to the RFL about the refereeing performance:

“I think they should be good enough. As coaches, what you want to do is review your team and say where we kind of fell down. What you don’t want to be doing is reviewing the game for the RFL.

“They should be big enough and good enough I know Ben Thaler has been a referee for a hell of a long time, I’m sure he’ll have a little look at it but for me we’ll mention it but I’m not going to be going into detail.

“I think that’s one for them to kind of have a look at but I would like him to look at the situation with Joe Greenwood because for me it’s not good enough.

“We’re getting Matty English sin binned for going in there because that’s kind of tackle you class it as kind of a cannonball tackle, that was outlawed that. So I get totally why they’ve had a little look at that and why he’s even sin binned him because you can see he’s lost his legs on the back of it.

“But what I can’t understand is then why’s that not been a sinbinning for Delaney I think it was, who struck him straight in the face. Or even Morgan Knowles, the way he’s reacting on the floor on the back end of it.

“So we’ll see what they come back up with but I just thought it kind of maybe spoiled the game of where it was at that time to be fair because then we had to start mixing things up again.”