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[One Foot in the Grave]

Before I launch into this tirade, I must stress that last night's official was not the principal reason that we lost.

BUT.....

We've now played nine matches, and I've only seen one referee who looked up to scratch at this level. Last night's official :

Failed to send off their substitute Mohammed, who, having been booked for a really poor challenge within two minutes of coming on, did the same thing soon afterwards.

Sent off Simon Richman for a second yellow, neither of which was for as bad a challenge as the two Mohammed committed.

Allowed their centre back to persistently foul Jordan Hulme, penalising only two of a dozen challenges.

Gave a throw in the wrong way on the say-so of his "assistant" who had a poorer view than he did.

I could go on.....but note the description of "assistant". What exactly is the role of the man on the line supposed to be ? Frequently this season, I've seen fouls committed of which the "assistant" has had a clear view, but the referee has not - yet the flag is never raised. Are they being told to only flag offsides and throw ins ? And if so, why ? Frankly we'd be no worse off without them.

[MadFrankie]

To be fair, he did expertly notice that the net had become slightly dislodged from the cross bar in the first half. Forget the peripheral stuff like penalising offences, it's this stuff that matters.

One other observation about him - there was a first-half incident where one of their players was booked for a foul on Andy White and the trainer came on to treat White. On restart, the ref made White leave the field, but isn't the rule now that players don't need to leave the field if their injury is the result of an incident that results in a card being issued?

[andrewflynn]

I have maintained for years that we, as a fan base, are often overly critical of referees and occasionally use them as convenient scapegoats for poor performances but my God that was horrendous last night. I honestly thought we'd seen the lowest level of ineptitude when we went to Gloucester. I was wrong.

[One Foot in the Grave]

I have maintained for years that we, as a fan base, are often overly critical of referees and occasionally use them as convenient scapegoats for poor performances but my God that was horrendous last night. I honestly thought we'd seen the lowest level of ineptitude when we went to Gloucester. I was wrong.

The lowest level was at Chester, and arguably both of those cost us two points on the day.