Fire the refs? How about we fix the rules?
Roar Rookie Ok so lately NRL refereeing hasn’t been great. Actually it’s been woeful, to say the least. But is it all the refs’ fault?
Have we made the task of refereeing what should be a pretty simple game too complicated?
The standard of officiating of late has brought on plenty of angst, confusion and heartache but maybe what it really needs is a whole lot of thought and courage to make the big changes when needed.
Here are a few ideas that have come to mind of late.
1. Bring back the in-goal judge
Not so long ago rugby league at the highest level had in-goal judges. The purpose of this was to assist the referee in adjudicating whether the ball had been placed legitimately in the in-goal. They moved back and forth along the dead ball line with a great view of attempted put downs.
He was one of three pairs of eyes the man in the middle had to assist in making the crucial decision. My proposal here is bring back the in-goal judge. Surely a set of eyes, directly in front of the play must assist in helping the referee make the correct decision.
2. Two touch judges per side
That’s right two per side, one half of one sideline each. This would ensure the touch judge is always up with the play and close enough to make the call, that’s right make the calls!
The touch judges, with the advent of the Video Referee, have relinquished all responsibility from making the call instead they now only give the boss a blank look and say “better go upstairs for this one”. Also we need a larger core group of professional officials. With big money coming the game’s way, it’s time to make our officials the best going around.
3. One referee on the field
Whether we like it or not the game generally flows at the tempo at which the official will allow it. Two referees was always a recipe for disaster with one referees interpretation being different from the other.
Examples would be the 10m. Now one ref might like to separate the teams by a Big 10 the other might like a small 10. How fast will the ruck be? One man (or woman) should be in charge of the flow game.
4. Captain’s Challenge
I like it. My way of thinking would be the referee would no longer have the option to go straight to the video. They must make a decision in consultation with the assisting officials on the spot.
If the captain (from either side) feels the officials have made a boo boo then they can challenge the decision, and they get two per quarter. Get it wrong and you lose one from the next quarter. Get them both wrong and next quarter you will have zero challenges available to you. Challenges would reset at half time.
5. Quarters
That’s right you read right quarters. Why not? Extend the game and add breaks for more advertising revenue.
25 minutes per quarter sounds great to me, with two interchanges per quarter. To take a leaf out of the other codes book, one player who is solely a substitute.
It may only be my opinion but I can’t see how introducing quarters and extending the advertising opportunities would be a bad thing?
6. On the line is not out
Ok so rugby league has always played by the rule on the line is out and on the line is a try. This always seems to cause conjecture when it comes to slight touches by a foot on the sideline or is the part of the ball on the line?
I would propose that to be in touch more than half of your foot/body/ball must be over the line. The same would apply for the placing of the ball for a try. Again if the captain wishes to challenge the call he can but at his own risk. Perhaps this one is not of huge importance but there seems to always be a contentious call based on whether it was or wasn’t it on that painted blade of grass.
Surely we can help the officials rather than just piling on the pressure, can’t we?
One final point. You cannot run around the back of your own player.
Simple.
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September 18th 2012 @ 7:03am
Ask said | September 18th 2012 @ 7:03am | Report comment
I agree with all your points except the last one. I was a big exponent of two refs at first as it had noticebly sped up the game and reduced the wrestling but we seem to be getting back to how it was before with one ref. I have thought for a while that we needed to go back to one ref with four touch judges; the ref positions himself where the pocket ref is now and controls the play the ball, the touchies look after marking the defensive line – two guys looking at each other if someone crosses in front of them early off side, far easier to police than ref looks one way and the defenders on the opposite side go early. The touchies on the offensive line look out for forward passes etc. The one ref should be the one making the decision on video replay, they are the one who cop it on the field from the players so they should be the final word.
September 18th 2012 @ 7:15am
oikee said | September 18th 2012 @ 7:15am | Report comment
Every time you add a extra person to the sinario, you are overcomplicating things,. The video ref, only needs 1 person, not 2, or 3, someone surgested we let the refs at the ground look at the replay and they can make the call. I like this, and if we had the coach’s challenge it would probably work fine.
We dont need extra touch line refs, if again we had the coach challenge, then if he sees a dud call he can challenge it, otherwise hold his peace.
Overcomplicating the game is what is wrong with this game. Get rid of the strip forward (always have a scrum, dont ever send a one on one tackle strip to the video ref for gods sake) get rid of the torso, get rid of the video ref from any knock forward decision and ninety percent of your problems dissapear overnight.
The people running our game cant see this, they are now blinded by a billion. They will probaby call in some consultants, do a servey, hold a enquiry, and 100 million dollars later they will take the corner post out of play. ? That is a example, but you get the drift.
This game needs to be very careful, simple 10 cent problems could turn into our own worst nitemare if someone with a helf brain does not get control of the CEO position.
The people in charge now cant see the problem, their eyes are conditioned to not seeing, or they are simply looking to hard. Its right in front of you John Grant, open your eyes mate.
September 18th 2012 @ 7:42am
solly said | September 18th 2012 @ 7:42am | Report comment
They certainly have made things more difficult than they need to be!
The referee needs to be invested with authority, not have it spread among several others.
All rule changes should be addressed with this in mind.
That’s what I think.
September 18th 2012 @ 7:56am
Rob9 said | September 18th 2012 @ 7:56am | Report comment
I like the idea of 4 extra pairs of eyes out there. Except I don’t mind 2 guys in the middle, one controlling the defensive side and one the attacking. 8 officials plus the guys upstairs would probably send the NRL broke but surely with that many rule experts out there they won’t be able to get it wrong. There was talk the other day of doing away with guy upstairs and having the guys in the middle make the call with the benefit of replays. I think this idea also has some merritt.
I like the idea of challenges. How many and when I don’t mind but it adds another dimension to the game. I’d put them in the hands of the coaches though. The captain being out in the centre already has a lot going on without having to worry about when they should use one. In the post match interviews it’s always the coaches who are the harshest critics of the refs, let’s give them some power (and responsibility) to have some influence on the game.
I think half of something over the line puts too much grey area into the rule. On the white stuff and your out/ball is over is as black and white as it gets.
I’m a big fan of quarters and anything that lengthens the product that is an NRL game. Just a 2 or 3 minute on field break after 25 mins of play won’t have a huge impact on the flow of the game. I’d also like to see a ‘game play’ game clock ie. the ball goes out or there’s a stop in play, the ref doesn’t have to blow his whistle 3 times the clock is automatically stopped until play restarts.
September 18th 2012 @ 8:47pm
JezRu said | September 18th 2012 @ 8:47pm | Report comment
I really like the idea of stopping the “game clock” as you put it whenever there is a stop in play. This would take away the discrepancy between play during the first 75 minutes and the final 5 minutes when any time the ball is dropped or goes over a line time off is called. These types of decisions need to be uniform across the whole game.
September 18th 2012 @ 7:59am
Pete said | September 18th 2012 @ 7:59am | Report comment
Here,here just simplify those contentious rules then leave them alone so as not to confuse everyone. Tell me how many rule changes soccer has made over the years. Main rule is that the refs decision is final.
September 18th 2012 @ 8:42am
turbodewd said | September 18th 2012 @ 8:42am | Report comment
I like the idea of 4 quarters. I mean just make it a tiny 2-3min break so we can get all our football without ads being slipped in at bad spots and us missing kickoffs. You could call quarter time at the first natural break in play after the 20min mark.
Captain’s challenge is a good idea.
September 18th 2012 @ 9:58am
Clark said | September 18th 2012 @ 9:58am | Report comment
I think Touch judges at the moment are proving to be of little use with too much influence from the video ref, In my opinion the idea of a challenge is good, and I would be pleased if the video ref was only used in that circumstance rather than for almost every single one of the many stoppages games have.
September 18th 2012 @ 11:01am
Nafe said | September 18th 2012 @ 11:01am | Report comment
I think the video ref should only be used in challanges, Also agree in brinigng back the in goal judge. But i still think on the line should be out, Its much easier to interpret than all the ball being out, or half the ball or whatever such scenario.
I would laso like to challange your first part saying the refereeing has been poor. I disagree, the refereeing has been satisfactory in my view, THe video box has let everyone down.
I also like the idea of 25 minute quarters, 5 minute breaks at quarter time, 10 minute break at half time.
September 18th 2012 @ 11:37am
Nathan of Perth said | September 18th 2012 @ 11:37am | Report comment
People tend to reference the American Gridiron football when they start talking about replays and challenges, but its worth looking holistically at the system before trying to pick bits and pieces.
The NFL uses an eight man officiating team (plus other assistants like the chain gang) for managing their matches. A Head Referee who makes the final decisions and relays calls and then a number of assistant officials. The key thing here is that all of these officials have very carefully laid out duties, and in a lot of cases, particularly player-roles that they have to watch like a hawk. Everyone knows what his task is. All of these officials can signal that an infringement, which is then relayed to the referee who makes the call and announces it. Replays are only a single component of a very elaborate officiating system that very rarely borks a call. They are not there to make calls – they are there to confirm calls made by an already very efficient system. It is not their magic bullet.
Would be akin to having an extra four officials on the field, all with special tasks – one might have the specific role of watching every decoy and dummy runner for obstruction, for instance, whilst another drops well back and focuses on the full-back when the kick comes in. Now personally I think that something along those lines is physically workable and might reduce rates of officiating mistakes, at the cost of some game-speed. The problem, of course, is that we make life so hostile for referees and officials that it would be almost impossible to generate officials in the numbers you would need for that.
There is a sliding scale of trade-offs – speed of play versus accuracy of officiating. You can push it in either direction, but it is a continuum.
And just as an aside. Firing a referee for a clanger of a call is akin to firing a player for getting a 4-week suspension, a red card or dropping the ball as he’s going in for a try.
September 18th 2012 @ 12:31pm
oikee said | September 18th 2012 @ 12:31pm | Report comment
Yes, but the NFL make 100 billion a year, not 1 billion. We need to keep costs down at the moment, and not make the mistake by adding extra personel will fix all our problems.
Fix the 10 cent problems and use the money wisely. Wasting millions on CEO and other wasteful endevours must stop before they start.
Like i said, a simple American ex NFL ceo will be fine to run our game. Their was a woman from the Green bay Packers looking for a CEO job at the Broncos not long ago, she would be perfect to run our game.
Give her a million, save 1 million right their.
And no more sideline or video ref officials, we have enough now all making mistakes, why add to the problem.
The problems the game has are all fixable , we just need a brain to do so. At the moment, the game has no brain.
September 18th 2012 @ 12:47pm
Nathan of Perth said | September 18th 2012 @ 12:47pm | Report comment
Well, like I said, there is a trade-off to be made between officiating accuracy, speed of game and money.
September 18th 2012 @ 12:39pm
oikee said | September 18th 2012 @ 12:39pm | Report comment
The AFL is that Canada club soda, all glossy and showy.
The NRL is the Beer ferries, Blam, we try to look good what happens, Blam, beer ferry gone.
Blam, a small group (qrl) wondering what to do to combat this, Blam blam, another couple of beer ferries gone..
Dont get me wrong, i love the Beer ferries, ugly and disgustingly cute, every mother should own one.
But when our beer ferries look up to that great big brewers house for inspiration, blam, blam, blam, we get shot to pieces.
Gotta love the beer ferries.
September 18th 2012 @ 10:13pm
JezRu said | September 18th 2012 @ 10:13pm | Report comment
I agree Nathan that all officials need to have set duties and responsibilities. Touch judges are in the best position to adjudicate in-touch (obviously) but also forward passes, in some instances knock forwards and any foul play to the blind side of the referee. An in-goal judge is in the best position to adjudicate legitimate put downs, dead in-goal and correct restarts (was it touched, 20m tap or drop out). So whilst I agree that more officials with set responsibilities would be of benefit, I would rather see the one main official on field and the others assisting from the sidelines. I would also argue that with direct on field consultation the game would not slow down and may even be slightly faster then what we currently have with replay after replay after replay.
September 18th 2012 @ 12:03pm
Naught said | September 18th 2012 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
We don’t need more touch judges at all. They are basically useless. 1 is fine.
I would like to see more in goal ref though. How many calls are “refs decision” around this area..
September 18th 2012 @ 9:17pm
JezRu said | September 18th 2012 @ 9:17pm | Report comment
I certainly agree that the touch judges haven’t been great but this can be said for all of the officials. The main problem I see is the removal of their responsibilities. Touch judges need to be given back their power of decision. My idea here is that With two per side they can far easily patrol their given half and better keep up with the play then for example making a in-touch call from 30 metres away??…and as I have written I certainly agree with the in-goal judge. I guess my main point here is lets have the tools to make the right decision on the ground without unnecessary delays.