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The NRL’s bunker looked decidedly shaky over Round 5. Yet the errors that referee’s elite performance manager Tony Archer has admitted is not the most troubling aspect of the system that was exposed last weekend.
The role of the video referee has evolved over the years from having one when the NRL came into existence to the situation today, where there are three of them on each game.
In fact, it has evolved to an extent that we no longer have video referees at all. They are now ‘review officials’, and their charter is to review the original on-field decision and decide whether it should be upheld or overturned.
The change started when Daniel Anderson took over at the end of 2012. His feeling was if a scoring opportunity was sent straight upstairs the video referee had to rule on every aspect of the play without really knowing what ruling was expected. The idea was that if the on-field referee made a judgment on whether he thought a try had been scored or not, then that would be given to the video referee to review.
At least it gave the guy in the box a starting point to work from, went the argument. That became the ‘try’ or ‘no try’ live decision, and the vide ref would need “sufficient evidence” to overturn it.
A lot of people don’t like the referee having to make a decision based on what he’s seen, as they feel he often has to guess. That’s far from accurate – both touch judges and the pocket referee have input into any decision, so there are four sets of eyes that contribute to the decision.
And do you really want to go back to the days of ref’s call and benefit of the doubt? People seem to have forgotten how flawed that was.
Former NRL players were added to the box – because the footballers had a better ‘feel’ for the game – so we had two video referees with separate roles. From there we have arrived at the bunker, where there are three officials adjudicating on decisions.
So what is going wrong?
We’ve had obstruction calls that have caused debate, an offside call that was not overturned, and a penalty try that was not awarded.
I can handle all of that – the people pushing buttons are going to make errors, because they’re people. Their communication to the referee recommending a sin-bin can sometimes lapse.
Except on Saturday night, we had what looked like a clear-cut decision of the North Queensland Cowboys’ Gavin Cooper being held up by the St George Illawarra Dragons defence. Referee Ben Cummins and his touch judge were only metres from the ball and ruled that Cooper had been held up. Every replay that was broadcast saw the ball off the ground, until well after the on-field decision of ‘held’ was made.
The decision was sent to the bunker as a ‘no try’ and the replays were duly examined. Not all the angles observed were broadcast to the viewers, which only added to the confusion.
However, one thing should not have been confusing. The on-field decision by the officials is to be reviewed by the bunker – the officials are not supposed to come up with their own interpretation of events.
The on-field officials ruled Cooper was held up and there was no sufficient evidence to overturn it.
The bunker is not there to determine when the tackle is complete. The referee does that – and that was exactly what he did. The bunker operators overturned the decision not because they reviewed it but because they looked at it without regard for the original ruling.
We were suddenly back in 2012, which is the year video refereeing really started to get into trouble (the Inglis Origin II try, Origin III obstruction, the ‘Hand of Foran’ finals match etc.).
On Saturday night, I saw the bunker functioning outside its charter. It must use the on-field decision as a starting point and review it.
As for some of the other rulings over the weekend, they were by a large majority correct. We seem to forget that fact – only the errors are highlighted. Part of the reason for that is the impact that they can have, but mostly because the standard of officiating is very high indeed, and the rugby league public expects perfection.
I hope we see a lot fewer referrals to the Bunker in Round 6. The on-field officials are cut a lot more slack by the public and they don’t get much wrong anyway!
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