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You ever ask yourself why penalties are given for infringements at certain periods of the game, and then when the pressure builds, the same infringements never draw the same type of penalties?
Let’s face it, different rules apply at different times in games of rugby league.
Here are some examples of when different rules apply.
If a game is tight and we’re in the last ten minutes or so, offside, markers being square, and play the ball-type infringements draw less penalties then if they occurred earlier in the game.
The term ‘professional foul’ is often used by commentators and fans alike for many player infringements committed intentionally to give their team an advantage.
Why does one type of ‘professional foul’ draw ten minutes in the bin in 90 per cent of cases – that is when a player makes a clean break and is run down, and the defence slows the play the ball.
Yet when player(s) give intentional penalties away when they are defending their line, we all know they are obviously ‘professional fouls’, the referee only ever threatens to send a player to the ‘sin-bin’.
What about a defensive player who runs interference when a kick isolates a player – this happens in all kick-chase scenarios as the defence tries to shield the kicker from attacking players – are these not also professional fouls?
There are many other areas where attacking and defensive players commit deliberate infringements to give their team an advantage. These include holding onto a player after a scrum breaks, keeping square at marker and continual standing in an offside position – mainly backs and wingers are guilty of the last one.
Referees are content to abide with the ‘sin-bin’ rule for a punch, or on the Greg Bird slap we saw in the Titans versus Raiders game on the weekend. Why was that gentle slap worth ten minutes when so many other professional fouls happened in that game?
Tony Archer is to blame. During his time as the head of referees, he has been responsible for the lack of consistency in the ranks of all referees – remember the Bunker revolt on the obstruction rule a month or so ago?
Pattern did it his way and drew fire from all sides for the inconsistency. Archer has not told the referees to police ‘professional fouls’ in any equal fashion. The game is now so often a disappointment to watch when these infringements are treated in varying degrees of standards.
When players acknowledge and change their ways when they know any type of punch earns the perp a guaranteed sin-bin visit, should not applying the same rules to all professional fouls make the players accountable? The players are challenging the referees all the time in these grey areas and they know they can get away with it.
Either Archer has to go, or he has to make a statement as to why all unpunished professional fouls is acceptable.
All it would take is to have two to three players in the sin-bin and a show of consistency, and the coaches and players would show restraint as they have done with the ‘punch’ rule.
If it continues as it is now, fans will leave and I for one am frustrated with the game and its stop start action.
There was a game on the weekend where referee Jared Maxwell pinged a player by name five times for being deliberately offside. He made the comment to the captain, saying that ‘next time that player was offside he would act’.
It was only a matter of ten mins or so later that the same player was pinged for being offside yet nothing was done other than the penalty.
When the audience is waiting for a referee to carry out this threat, and then weakens on his position, it does send a message to the players, the coaches, and the fans alike.
I believe that referees police the game with intend to deliver penalties not so much on merit, but in an equally distributive context.
This applies more so during extra time, and in the last ten minutes or so when a game is close, where the policy changers and soft penalties are always never pinged.
If Archer thinks his policy and administration of policing the rules via his referees goes un-noticed, he is obviously not the man for the job.
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