Sam Burgess has become the latest Super League coach to call for changes in the process of officiating games after Warrington Wolves’ win over Huddersfield Giants.
Saturday evening saw Warrington win 34-4 against the Giants in a game that seemed to drag on forever with the second-half viewed by many as an extremely poor showing of Super League, not just down to what the players did but also the elongated captain’s challenge and video referee processes.
Wire led 28-0 at half-time with the match effectively over and that only served to add to how futile the second-half was with commentator Mark Wilson taking to social media to label it the ‘worst half of Super League ever’, and he probably wasn’t far wrong.
Post-match on Sky Sports, Burgess would joke and ask where he could get his money back for the second-half and it’s something he spoke about in his post-match presser, shared to the Warrington Wolves’ YouTube channel.
“Where do you want to start?” he responded when asked about the second-half.
“Just the game, it was so long. So long. Like, what are we doing?
“If you’re a neutral and you turn that game on, you turn it off.
“We need to have a look at, if we all care about the game being better, it needs to improve.”
Burgess made it clear that he wasn’t taking aim at anyone in particular, adding:”I’m not having a shot at anyone. It’s just the way I feel. It think, yeah, it was tough. It was tough to watch.”
Only 24 hours before, Leeds Rhinos had defeated Wakefield Trinity in a game that Brad Arthur had described as the ‘longest game in history’ with that match seeing an injury delay, three sin bins and multiple video reviews which meant it took over two hours to complete.
Anonymous
May 5, 2026 at 11:07 am
What I find annoying is no acceptance from the RFL that this will be looked at, it’s becoming worse than last season. They should put a clock on it and if they get it wrong they get it wrong. It’s no different than before VR was brought in there would always be a talking point in the pub or wherever after the game about any given decision. Now it’s worse because most the time the fans can see it but VR needs to look from 400 angles and then check them again. It’s draining the fans and the clubs.