Of all the defeats Saints have suffered during the past 40 years, there are probably two that left the deepest scars.

Ask any fan of a certain age and they will list the 1987 Challenge Cup Final defeat by Halifax, closely followed by the Leeds heartbreak at Old Trafford in 2011.

These days I am reminded of that Wembley defeat every week on account of the bloke who kicked the goals for Halifax that day – Colin Whitfield – being my postman. And what a thoroughly nice bloke he is – though he would have been even nicer if he had just skewed just one of those kicks wide of the uprights.

Every now and then I watch that game on You Tube – maybe some will see that is the sporting equivalent of wearing a pair of barbed wire underpants – but it is match that had everything, including some major talking points.

The long-range tries from the big-striding centres Mark Elia and Paul Loughlin were worthy of winning the cup.

That they didn’t, meaning the underdogs took the historic old pot back to Halifax, always falls on the shoulders of Elia who penned his name into Wembley infamy alongside Don Fox and Derek Noonan.

The New Zealand three-quarter was sliding over the line with the ball tucked under his arm when he was dispossessed by the craftiest tackle of all by loose forward John Pendlebury.

After the game that try and the one Elia had disallowed for a forward pass became the talking point, overshadowing what should have been the real focus of the fans and coach Alex Murphy’s ire.

That is Halifax’s first try – scored by Wilf George and given despite the big winger’s legs looking like they were in row c of the stand before the ball is touched down. No discussion – try given and Fax were off to a flier and Saints became increasingly jittery in that first half.

Had there been a video referee that day they would have surely spotted that and chalked it off.

Which brings us up to today and why we should be careful what we wish for when it comes to video refs and some fans’ belief that we would be better off without them.

Of course people are getting fed up with their over-use.

For starters, partly as a result of those stoppages, last Thursday’s Wigan v Cas game finished at five past 10. That’s a ridiculous time on a school night, with people missing buses home after an already long day at work and others being denied a proper debrief in the pub.

The late finish also means the on-the-whistle whistle misses the deadline for all the first editions.

The length of the game is a by-product of the over use of the video ref.

A bigger concern has to be how the use of the technology is now turning the referee into an increasingly indecisive figure.

Refs like Steve Ganson were never afraid to be decisive, and make his own judgement, but I can think of one occasion where he was pilloried for not going upstairs.

There has definitely been ‘mission creep’ when it comes to what the video ref was first intended for to how it is used now.

It used to be a means for the referee to check something neither he or his touch judges could clearly see, but now any element of doubt is sent upstairs, not simply for tries but for basic things like how to restart the game.

The prospect of making a wrong decision has turned the man in the middle into an indecisive shell. And who could blame them.

And what is worse players have now cottoned on that they can, if they feel they have been fouled, stay down and hope someone has a word.

It is hard to imagine old school whistlers like Fred Lindop and Billy Thompson asking a video ref’s opinion on all manner of things, but that said they never had to endure officiating a game where the big screen in the corner of the stadium displays, repeats and magnifies any errors.

We need to go back to basics where we let the ref use his judgement more, and only use it if the ref and touch judges when they genuinely cannot see why happened.

Sure there will be mistakes, and it is hard to put the genie back in the bottle, especially when all you can hear is a commentator’s voice declaring, ‘If the technology is there, use it’.

The decision making should be firmly back onto the shoulders of the man in the middle unless they genuinely haven’t a clue for a try.

And if the refs make the odd mistake, let’s accept that as the price worth paying to get the officiating of our game back to what it was.