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It seems that every Monday, the water-cooler chat is dominated by one thing – referees. We Aussies love a good whinge, one of many traits left over from our English forefathers I imagine.
But are we taking it too far? Or are there legitimate issues with current officiating standards?
A quick search through The Roar shows league fans to be the hardest critics of any Australian sport. With easily double the number of articles constructed about officials than the next, which is rugby union.
Hating on the referee is as Australian as meat pies, but it certainly seems worse now than at any point I can remember. It seems to be the go to explanation for any and all losses. But why?
Anyone with a good enough memory or a couple of old VHS tapes can easily see that the standard of refereeing today is light years ahead of where it was. Case in point, I watched a DVD copy of the first Origin match the other day.
For a game that is held on such a pedestal, it was filled from start to finish with errors and mistakes by the, admittedly very animated and entertaining, referee. But no one seemed to mind. The decision was made, the game moved on, and that was that.
I see several reasons for this increased scrutiny we are placing on the men in the middle. The first is the easiest. The quality of the broadcast. Even in the much maligned standard definition you can make out individual blades of grass that a ball or person may or may not be touching.
Back in the 80s on the old 34-centimetre screen you were lucky if you could make out whether the player with the ball was the opposition’s forward or your fullback.
Secondly, I think it is a phenomenon known as cognitive bias, which I won’t go into too much detail on, but suffice to say our brains are wired to observe what we already believe to be true.
In sport that means that your team are hardworking champions while other teams are rotten scoundrels. It is the reason New South Welshmen can wake up in the morning thinking that Nate Myles is a worse human being than Paul Gallen.
Our brains love being right, and it affects what we notice in the world around us. It means we are far more likely to notice an infringement against us than an infringement we commit. No matter how much we try to be impartial.
I believe this possibly explains why I thought the refereeing of the recent Panthers versus Roosters game was great. Because I didn’t have a vested interest, perhaps I could not see what others have claimed to see.
Or perhaps what I saw was an unadulterated version. Perhaps we will never know. The point is that reality is not exactly as we think it is.
One thing I thought was great in that game though was the two incidents where the referee made an on-field call, and within seconds it had been quietly and unobtrusively reviewed upstairs, and the referee was able to correctly overturn his previous call. No one will ever convince me that this is not the way forward.
The third and, I think, most important cause is the players and coaches having free reign to whinge and complain every game through their post-match interview.
This is a terrible look for our sport and I think the NRL needs to come out and say, “No one is to speak back to the referees on-field, and they are not to be mentioned in post-match pressers.” They also need to issue an edict to commentators that they should dispute calls, but that they should move on with the game quickly and reasonably.
They will never be perfect, for your perfection might be my hell. But with the support of the NRL, at least maybe they can stop being the Monday headline every week. Good luck to the remaining teams, and may your victories be free from controversy.
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