What game are the video refs playing?

Roar Guru

By Steve Kaless, 11 May 2009 Steve Kaless is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: NRL, referees, Rugby League, video ref

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Few people with any class would have watched the antics of Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and felt that the striker covered himself in glory. Referees in all sports have a tough job and it can be highly frustrating to see them make mistakes as I wrote about last week.

But on reflection you normally cut them a break as they are working under extreme circumstances and having to make split second decisions.

But does the same go for video referees?

Last week I moaned about referees on the field lacking empathy with tacklers attempting to do their job. Now I set about this week determined not to write about referees but after watching the Test match and the matches to date there can be simply no alternative.

It all started on Friday night as the Kangaroos cruised past the Kiwis. As the hosts set about running a coaching clinic in attacking football for their trans tasman cousins, I stood in awe as they executed a perfect play which sent Billy Slater over untouched.

It took great timing for Slater and Justin Hodges and a superb sleight of hand by Darren Lockyer to throw the perfect pass as they absolutely bamboozled the Kiwis defence.

The result? No try.

Video referee Bill Harrigan had decided that Hodges had run an obstruction. Goose. Anyone watching the video would have seen Manu Vatuvai committing to Hodges and charging in field. There is no way the Aussies should have been punished for his error.

As I said last week, it is my opinion that the majority of referees fail to understand the nature of defence and I reckon the same goes here.

A failure to appreciate the decision making process in defence, when to go in, stay out etc means that referees can’t work out whether or not a player was an obstruction.

It doesn’t help that defenders often play up the role of others when all hope of stopping the attacker is lost.

How often do we see players clatter into other attacking players before dramatically falling to the ground or appealing to the referee when they were at long odds to even get near the player in possession.

I’m sure coaches are instructing players to do so in a last ditch attempt to stop a try. I know I would.

But it didn’t end with Harrigan.

Sean Hampstead was at it at the Newcastle match, disallowing a try to William Zillman and ruling Scott Prince was an obstruction.

Scott Prince played the ball, just what he is meant to do after that short on evaporating is anyone’s guess on this ruling.

I’ve seen it time and time again over the years, and with greater frequency, as a player dives over from dummy half the defenders realise they have been done and crash into the player who has played the ball and claim obstruction.

Rarely would they have stopped the player scoring but more often than not they get the penalty.

It’s garbage. If you are allowed to score from dummy half then it might happen that defenders may come in contact with the previously tackled player but they really need to ask themselves, would it have made any difference?

But the obstruction rule seems pretty straight forward compared to grounding the ball after our diligent referees have come up with their new interpretation.

You must ground the ball with downward pressure, but this year you can be actually dropping the ball so long as there no “separation” between the hand and the ball when it is touching the ground.

However, the rotund Paul Simpkins has also decided to add into the mix that you can ground the ball with your chest. That should clear things up.

The honourable Mr Simpkins in his many replays to determine whether Jamie Lyon had knocked the ball on failed to look at the precedent of Jaryd Hayne a few weeks ago when he was penalized and a classic try became the one that got away.

Are these matters even discussed to get some sort of consistency? It doesn’t seem so.

Imagine it decided a Grand Final. Well in fact it did in 2006, little seems to have been learned since then.

Of course, I doubt we could actually do without our video referees as the referees seem to get blasted when they don’t go upstairs as well.

At least Des Hasler was happy with the performance this week.

What did Steve Price say about referees and winning matches again? He looks to have been proven right.

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The Crowd Says (23) | Page 1 of Comments

oikee said | May 11th 2009 @ 7:58am | Report comment

Steve we all are frustrated and sick to death of mistakes being made by video refs, I ask the question, why have them, we have 2 refs who want to blow penalties for players who linger .000003 of a second to long on a player. Its hopeless.

The game is starting to suffer with mistakes. Teams who should be getting beat are winning, i am crying in my soup every weekend.

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Brett McKay said | May 11th 2009 @ 8:58am | Report comment

Steve, I’ll tell you what’s suprising me in these eternal video ref debates. For all the analysts and commentators and reporters and Mark Geyers that say that the video ref needs a former player in the box beside them for obstruction rulings, NOT ONE of them has mentioned that the NRL refs have three recently retired NRL players among their ranks being fast tracked. This being the case, I don’t know why the Refs don’t get on the front foot and put Luke Phillips and Paul Mellor (and there’s another one, and his name escapes me unfortunately) up in the video box for experience.

I can’t see how it wouldn’t be a win-win for all parties – the “experts” would get what they want, the refs would get the players perspective, and the ex-player-refs get valuable experience they need. Robert Finch: do it THIS WEEKEND!!

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Terry Kidd said | May 11th 2009 @ 9:33am | Report comment

I have been a referee, admittedly a lower grade ‘park’ ref, and every week I am flabbergasted by some of the decisions I see from these supposedly high performing NRL field and video refs. Where I reffed there was no video to get a replay, you made your decision on the spot. We didn’t get every decision right but you could pretty much bet that there was consistency, the players pretty much accepted the decisions and if there was a question and you answered ‘I saw it this way’ then that was the end of it.

Even with the naked eye I would have said ‘no try’ to Jamie Lyons’ push the ball forward with the body then fall on it trick. The Slater effort on Friday night would have been awarded. I can’t comment on the Zilman effort because I didn’t see it. My point is that the video ref, supposedly the point of difference, is proving a nightmare. Give the power back to the field referees and the touch judges. What else are they there for anyway?

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Mick of Newie said | May 11th 2009 @ 9:46am | Report comment

You have got to remember these calls are right at the margins. Most of these decisions are close to 50/50′s.

The decoy runner obstruction ones are debated every week and they are tough calls. What I don’t understand is why they don’t have an elevated end on view which will show more clearly the line that people run and where the ball is caught. Wathcing anxcangle from a fixed camera on the half way line is completely distorted.

On the Zillman one yesterday, commentators Wayne Pearce and Mark Braybrook called no try before the video ref, there is no doubt that Prince purt his hand around the markers neck, the fact the markwer would not have been able to make the tackle is irrelevant.

The Lyons ones were equally tough. I have no problem with gorunding the ball with your body, the knock up in the air should probably not be given.

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oikee said | May 11th 2009 @ 9:51am | Report comment

Thanks Terry, your a shining light, this is exactly what i say, we now have 2 refs why dont they just award the try or make their own desicion, it cant be much worse than the video refs performance.

And the dinosaurs running the ARL, could we please just sack the lot and give the job to someone with vision, we need islanders playing for their country not ours. How the hell can we grow internationallly if we keep allowing islanders to play for OZ. This is hopeless with people with no vision only self interest for the clubs and self promotion. Sack the losers.

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The Link said | May 11th 2009 @ 9:53am | Report comment

Steve – Slater’s was a try, no question. Lyon i’m not so sure but they got it right with Zillman. Say what you will about the player playing the ball but Scott Prince had him in a headlock.

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Brett McKay said | May 11th 2009 @ 10:25am | Report comment

Wally Lewis hit in on the head yesterday about Lyon’s try – why can you can score a try with your chest or torso, but not knock on??

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bulldog said | May 11th 2009 @ 12:18pm | Report comment

In the Cowboys vs Dragons game there were a couple of similarly debatable decisions. Firstly the no try for obstruction where Weyman was ruled to have be obstructed when he was no chance of completing the tackle with or without the decoy runner. I have noticed in these obstruction cases that teams are now grabbing onto the decoy runner on purpose to make sure they get the no try rulling. Have a look at the Weyman one – he intentionally grabs the decoy runner once he realises he has been beaten by the defence…

Also in the same game JT had a try disallowed when he rolled over the defender to score. There was no double movement or second advancing of the ball. I have see this sort of thing get awarded try – but not this time. No consistency..

And the Jamie Lyon tries – do not get me started what a crock for both of those, particularly the tapped forward ball…

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cosmos forever said | May 11th 2009 @ 1:11pm | Report comment

Is is too trite of me to suggest that all of your are just getting the kind of calls the Raiders have been getting for years?

Seriously – the reffing will not improve because they do not have a ‘learning culture’. You can’t critique them and Robert Finch just tries to lambast anyone who questions them.

It won’t change.

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Mick of Newie said | May 11th 2009 @ 1:45pm | Report comment

Cosmos
Paranoid and igonrant in 5 lines well done.

Good piece today on foxsports.com.au abourt the refs preparation. A good read.

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