The Roar
The Roar

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Ref blaming is for the mugs

Ref blaming is a mug's game.
Roar Guru
6th July, 2016
49

After another round of NRL and yet another ‘outrage’ over the referees and bunkers, is it time to get smart and admit that constantly blaming our officials is a dumb idea?

2016 was to be the end of NRL refereeing controversies. The new CEO spent an enormous amount of money setting up the much vaunted bunker and we were promised better, faster and clearer decisions.

But even with all this time, effort and money – plus the threat of draconian fines for any coach or player who dares criticise the on-field decision maker – we are suffering through yet another year of weekly decision ‘fiascos’. There is a conga line of aggrieved coaches whining and moaning about the way their team has been robbed by the whistle-blowers.

They are right, of course, the referees and bunker team are getting decisions wrong, and these errors are affecting the outcome of some games. They also need to grow up.

An old military adage is that you should look at your problem and ask, is there anything I can do about this? If there is, then it’s not your problem, it’s your job. And if you can’t do anything about it, stop treating it like a problem, it is your situation, accept it and do your job.

What of our NRL officials making mistakes, is there anything we can do about this that hasn’t already been done? Full time officials, two referees, video referee, bunkers and so forth, all designed to reduce the errors that are still occurring.

That errors are still occurring is not because there is a failure of effort, lack of money, corrupt or incompetent officials, it is because any sport being judged by a person involves judgement calls at some point.

This is something every single sport in the world has to some degree. Part of this, is that sometimes the decision will go your way, and sometimes it will not.

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Don’t get me wrong, if a coach wants to criticise the referee and offer a suggestion that will help, I’m all ears, but having a moan and saying nothing more then, “They need to get it right” shows a depressing lack of maturity.

They may as well get upset at weekend rain, crowds during Christmas shopping or having to work on a Monday.

What about behind closed doors though? In the dressing room with no one listening but 17 devastated players who have seen a game slip through their fingers after the referee made a contentious call. Is that the time to tell the team it wasn’t their fault?

Flashback to October 2010. My team, Wests just need to lie on the ball for 20 seconds to get a week off and easy home prelim final. Then, the desperate Sydney Roosters scrum plough into the Tigers forwards before the ball is even fed.

Frank-Paul Nu’uausala dives on the ball and referee Shayne Hayne screams to play on. Like a nightmare, Anasta kicks an incredible field goal and they go onto win in golden point. The Roosters would go on to make the grand final.

Surely this was all Hayne’s fault. How could he allow pushing in a scrum before the ball was even fed? Should Tim Sheens tell his players that they lost the game because the referee knew his intervention in the final seconds of a final would be whined about, dissected, analysed and criticised so ignored a dodgy scrum?

Or should he remind them that they had had nearly two hours to win that football game. They had close to 60 occasions to score points and in return, had to stop the opposition 60 times from doing the same.

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Should he remind them of the try scored in the first half which blew the game right open and was then immediately called back because Benji Marshall punched Mitchell Pearce. Yes, that specific tackle to throw your first punch after seven years of first grade.

Jack Gibson put it more succinctly, when he brushed off a reporter questioning a refereeing decision with the simple fact that his team had more than enough opportunities to win the game. If they had to rely on a single decision by the ref to get the victory, they should have done better the other 79 minutes of play.

The smart coach can turn their team of players into a team of adults who own their game. If they win, it was because they earned it, not a refereeing decision going their way. And of course, if they lose, the only people who could have prevented it, are themselves, the players with 80 minutes to get the job done.

How enormously liberating to know that you are in charge of your destiny, no one else.

NRL players should aspire to be more like Serena Williams who has never been beaten in her entire career. Oh sure, she has ‘lost’ heaps of times, but never been beaten.

After a loss, she invariably blames the outcome of her own performance, not doing the best she could, paying the scantest regard to her opponent.

This is not selfishness, or self-absorption, this is the world’s greatest female tennis player showing that every time she goes on the court, she decides the winner, not her opponent, and certainly not the referee.

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This demeanour is why her most embarrassing moment as an adult, the US Open outburst at the line judge who foot faulted was so shocking. Here was the unflappable, imperial Serena Williams, behaving like so many lesser lights, moaning at the officials and acting like her destiny was in the hands of some line judge.

It is time to move on, the referee and bunker will do their very best but mistakes are going to be made. Having a sook about this will not change it. Move on and let the players believe the fate of the game is in their hands.

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