Every year, rugby league fans are burdened with referees interpreting a different rule with a new approach, no doubt the result of a pre-season get together to scrutinise a “problem” area of the game.
The frustrating part, however, is that they get it right about as often as Forrest Gump attempting to solve a Rubik’s Cube!
This year there are two glaring areas that have proven to be a blight on the state of play in 2009.
The first is that our officials have declared the attacking kicker a protected species. A team is now being penalised for daring to make any contact whatsoever on a player delivering a kick.
Any contact. That includes a fingernail inadvertently scraping the kicker’s boot.
C’mon guys, give the game a break. Rugby league is what it is because of the physical nature of game. We are still a contact sport for now, and the opportunity to challenge the kicker is a part of the fabric of the NRL.
I’m by no means suggesting the kicker is not to be protected.
Far from it.
If a player hits a kicker late or high, then fair enough, blow the pea out of the whistle.
But if we give the attacking kicker carte blanche to take as much time as he wants to execute his kick, then we are losing an important element of pressure that may force a team into an error with good defence.
We will see more tries scored from kicks because it will become an easy avenue for scoring points.
The second area is what we now deem to be a high tackle.
Any contact with the throat or head is now deemed to be a ‘no go’ area for defenders, regardless of the first point of contact.
I’m not talking about blokes hanging on to the neck in grapple tackles or head slams or dishing out stiff arms. Yes, these are all worthy penalties.
I’m referring to the occasions when a defender hits the ball carrier in a legitimate tackle and then bumps up off the body or the ball and ends up with some form of accidental contact above the shoulders.
The high tackle rule is there to protect players from illegal tactics and prevent injuries.
These types of tackles fall into neither of the aforementioned categories, so why are we penalising them?
I’ll tell you why. Because the discretionary judgments of referees are being slowly whittled away to make way for black and white interpretations.
This is a misguided attempt to maintain consistency.
The problem with this is that the referee’s judgment is still paramount in determining the nature of a tackle.
We need to get back to referee’s having the option of using a neural path or two and actually make a discretionary judgment. If we don’t, then I propose we lose referees all together and we start to get R2D2 to adjudicate all of our matches since there is no longer a need for a human element.
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All the team list information for Round 9.
