Another round of Super League footy, another series of refereeing blunders. It’s hard to watch a series of matches of Super League and not come up with quite a few very questionable calls.
Now I don’t want to harp on and on about refereeing. It’s a tough job, a thankless task and somebody has to do it. No refs, no game, it’s as simple as that.
Referees are human and they will make mistakes from time to time. I have no problem with that. But it is the amount of mistakes per game, and the glaring errors – not the 50-50 calls – that grate.
Take the opening game of the season, Wigan versus Widnes. It was an engrossing contest that saw the Vikings amazingly fight back to earn a 22-22 draw. Referee James Child sent Patrick Ah Van off for a high shot, which was probably fair enough.
But how did Matty Smith not get his marching orders for kicking an opponent in the last few minutes of the game? Several of Childs’ other decisions were also very contentious.
The same pattern continued in the next TV game, Saints against Catalans. There were several strange calls, including one on a disallowed try to Eloi Pelissier which boggled the mind.
On Thursday we had one red card and one yellow, on Friday we had two yellows dished out, and then in Warrington versus Salford we had another two yellows. That’s an awful lot in three games.
Sure, it’s the opening round and players will be rusty, and I’m all for punishing foul play, but that’s a heavy rap sheet.
Michael Oldfield’s comments after the Catalans game were interesting. He didn’t blame the referee for his team’s defeat, but believed some of the decisions were odd.
“I thought overall the calls evened out, however I wouldn’t say I agreed with them all,” Oldfield said.
“I think the referees review committee will have a bit to look at after the game.”
The pattern continued in the game I was at, Huddersfield versus Hull FC, on Sunday. Danny Brough and Setaimata Sa had a running one-on-one battle through the game and Tim Roby struggled to contain it.
Hull FC were worthy 19-0 winners but Giants coach Paul Anderson commented on the refereeing after the match.
“There was some frustration coming in there, some strange decisions against us but I think at the end of the day we just lacked a little bit of cohesion,” he said.
Coaches and players blaming the ref after a defeat is as old as the hills in rugby league but Oldfield and Anderson weren’t doing that. What they, and the fans, want is consistency and some understanding with the refereeing. So far I don’t think we have had it.
Super League is billing the 2015 season as ‘every minute matters’, as with the new structure there is more pressure with every match, with every result.
To follow that reasoning the refs need to be on their game in every fixture and to raise their standard from previous seasons. Let’s hope that’s the case this year.
Follow John Davidson on Twitter @johnnyddavidson
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