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Rugby league happy to turn a blind eye to video ref inconsistency

The video refs may occasionally get it wrong, but it's not because of bias. (Image David Jackmanson, Wikimedia Commons)
Roar Guru
3rd October, 2015
22

Rugby league continues to ignorantly turn a blind eye to one of the most glaring and obvious inconsistencies in the sport, specifically the way the video referee is used.

The classic case is if there is an obstruction that is missed or allowed to let go by the referee, the player makes a break and then scores. The referee can check on it, find that there was an obstruction and go back 70 metres for a penalty.

What about if the same play happens and the player who made the break is tackled 5m short of the line. The next play they score. “Sorry skipper, we can’t check on what happened back up field”.

How can rugby league allow such an obvious error go on and everyone either not be aware of it, or turn a blind eye to it?

What about if this happens in a grand final?

Well it already has. In 2010 when Mark Gasnier scored the first try of the match. A couple of tackles earlier, Brett Morris’ foot was over the touch line with the ball in the lead up to the try.

It was missed by the touch judge.

If Morris passes to Jamie Soward who then kicks and Gasnier scores on that play, the try is disallowed.

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But because it happened a few plays later, the try was allowed.

But here is an idea. Let’s turn a blind eye to it all! That way, if nobody talks about it, then it doesn’t exist.

The solution would be to only allow the video referee to be used for in goal decisions. The on-field referees would then be responsible for what happens, low and behold, on the field. However, in order to save the general public from complaining about ‘the obvious shepherd missed by the referees’ the game has allowed this inconsistency to go unchecked up until now.

Rugby league promotes itself as being a professional sport. But allowing this to go unchanged, is anything but professional.

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