THERE’S only one thing worse than getting knocked out in a semi-final, and that is losing one to a dubious try.

Yes, there are plenty of us who still bear a grudge about Ellery Hanley’s forward pass to Andy Goodway for the last minute score which knocked Saints out of the 1990 Challenge Cup at Old Trafford.

And now we have another one to add to the folklore; rugby league’s hall of shame of slightly iffy decisions that have decided a big match and robbed the side of their chance of lifting silverware.

Ryan Hall’s try which sunk Saints on Friday night may have given some folk in the game a ‘dream final’ but for me it should never have been a try.

Saints had defended their line like Trojans – and even when it looked as though Hall had breached it he was smashed by a wonderful tackle from centre Mark Percival.

It is not clear-cut. Hall still managed to get the ball over the line with his wrist and has fingertips somewhere under the ball, but for my money control was lost as he was driven back by the force of the tackle and before he hits the ground.

Had that passage of play taken place anywhere else on the field it would have been a Saints scrum.

But of course the try was going to be given; the game had made itself hostages to such a fortune earlier on in the summer when it began giving the nod to little finger pressure touchdowns.

So I can see why they gave it, but that does not make it all right.

Maybe they will only look at this interpretation of the rules if Saturday’s dream final ends in a nightmare after being settled by Michael McIlorum touching it down with his ear in golden point.

My other big beef arising from this try being given the nod is the video referees’ tools themselves.

Slow-motion replays and zoom-ins effectively distort what has happened in real time. Why not run them in normal time to get a truer picture?

The video referee is being called upon far too much, not only does it drag out the evening and cause frustration in the grounds it is leading to an unhealthy dependency.

I do feel sorry for the on-field referees, but in this day and age of all games more or less being televised, one way or another, every decision is dissected and scrutinised by the fans and the media.

Get a decision wrong and they are questioned, undermined and ridiculed in a way that old school whistlers Billy Thompson, Fred Lindop and Sgt Major Eric Clay would never have thought imaginable.

You can almost understand the paralysis that is gripping the refs – the fear of getting it wrong is making them doubt whether they can make a single decision without going upstairs.

At the recent Warrington game the video ref was called on so frequently that the match official probably went upstairs to decide whether to order bitter or mild at the bar afterwards.

The video ref system has some merits and has picked up things that genuinely would never have been spotted by the naked eyes of the ref and touch judges, but it does need limiting.

What about cutting it to three per team – based on a captain’s challenge?