Robert Finch, you are the weakest link!

Brett - guess who I backed on the weekend. The Eels So there goes both your theories, although fair enough for thinking that, Mate, I am a massive league fan that just wants to see the games not ruined by poor ref calls. Week in week out there are problems and surely Finch So in summary, Robert Finch (the Refs boss) was: 1) sacked by a current NRL club and left on bad terms 2) has a son that plays in the NRL; and 3) has presided over 4 years where the standard of refs has not improved. So there you go - its a structured argument for why we need to replace Robert Finch as Ref boss

A very well constructed rebuttal. The Grapple tackle is a dirty tactic and one which the Storm have been punished for ever since its inception. However without straying from the point at hand, to insinuate that Robert Finch is looking after the Storm due to his sons affiliation is ludicrous! also to me it sounds like your article is mainly a Storm bashing session because they lost perhaps due to a penalty count not in your teams favor! You have an agenda which isn't well hidden! The ref's at times make some hideous calls which should come under more scrutiny, however i think Robert Finch is doing an acceptable job and ironically punished a linesman who did the Manly/Parra game and let 2 forward passes go which led to Manly's loss!

Rubbish. line ball decisions I can understand but 5 metre forward passes come on. There are 5 officials working the game, 2 referees, 2 touchies and a video ref. Some one stuufed up, but the wrong guy got sacked! I t should have been the refs calling the pass forward it was that obvious. I dont't know which ref it was who should have made the call, but one of the refs involved in that game is the up and coming super star ref (Bill Harrigan's protege). bY the way is he still involved with the refs in any way. Hasler had every right to blow up about that because if the pass is called forward (and the pass before) no try Manly ball attacking Parra line. The 4 try lead would not have been blown.

PuntPal, I'd love to come back and engage in some kind of meaningful debate here, but to be honest, your arguments are just so all over the place that I don't know where to start. What's more worrying is that you've now revealed that you're a lawyer by trade. So maybe the best I can do is try and establish your motivation or agenda behind this article. Please feel free to confirm or deny accordingly, but my only reasoning for the way you've tried to make these flimsy arguments about perceived or actual bias, conflicts of interest, professional and semi-professional refs scared of adjudicating by the letter of the law for fear of recrimination from their coach/boss, is that you can only be: a). a disgruntled fan of one of the teams thought to have been hard done by by refs over the weekend (Manly seems obvious), or b). as your name suggests, a disgruntled punter who lost money over the weekend because of refereeing decisions. So which one is it? Judging by your website, which looks to be a commercial NRL tipping advice and punting information service, my bet (if you'll pardon the pun) is that because of these now-confirmed refereeing mistakes, your system didn't return as much as was hoped, or as it would have if results went different ways. These mistakes have literally cost your and your customers money, and you want a scape-goat. How am I doing?

Doug - there was a report in the Daily Telegraph in 2009 that showed the Raiders had the most video ref decisions overturned than any other team (close to 60% No TRY - it was a few % more than the next closest). Other teams only had 45% overturned. That is statistically significant. I don’t have the specific source at hand, but if pushed I will try to track it down. I am not saying Robert Finch has explicitly stated that the Refs should ruin the Raiders, or that he said to the Refs that they should "take care of his son" – obviously it would be insane to claim that. But it is not at all insane to point out that those referees know where their bread is buttered. The Refs would know Robert Finch was sacked by the Raiders, so do you ever think they would subtly make sure they don’t give the Raiders any favours. Like I said, even if this is all just paranoid ranting – I should not even be given the opportunity to suggest these things because a conflict of interest and potential bias should not be allowed to exist. Mushi - you are deliberately conflating my arguments in a weak attempt to discredit me. Its not working by the way. I said forwarded passes (like the one that robbed Manly of two points on the weekend) could easily be solved through a challenge system. Manly would have challenged it, Video Ref would have corrected a clear mistake and the game would have had a just outcome. I am yet to understand why the video refs are not given the chance to rule on blatant forward passes. Somehow they are deemed capable of awarding tries where you can’t even see the ball - yet they can’t look at where a ball was thrown from and where it ends up, and then decide whether it was thrown forward?? If they cant decide coz its flat, then it should be awarded as a try – but blatant forward passes have no place in the NRL in 2010. Robert Finch is to blame for this failure in the rules. This is just typical of the kind of illogical system of rules we have. I am lawyer by trade and I can tell you that the NRL rules are the most dysfunctional set of laws that ever existed. They are also well hidden – try finding them someone? They have so many grey areas and so many flawed interpretations. We need a total overhaul of the game to make it a lot simpler and for common sense to prevail. We also need a totally independent referee boss – and we need some legal analysis applied to the laws to make them clearer and less prone to manipulation. Because lets face it, rules and laws are all about controlling behaviour and we need to get a lot more serious about the laws/rules of the game. I love Rugby League and the NRL, but sometimes we are way too amateur in the way we operate.

How would a challenge system help if the decisions the video referees are making are ridiculous. How does giving them more decisions to make solve this? Your challenge depends on holding changing the rule about the ball leaving the hands backwards, necessary to have video refs rule on the forward pass, which means we are going to ignore physics and make the game slower. As to the perception of bias yes, potential perception is one thing but you actually claim overt bias after saying you don’t and reiterate it in your comments. Very disingenuous as you are trying to come across as moderate whilst putting forward an extreme conspiracy theorist view.

Hi PuntPal, you are making a pretty serious claim that the NRL referees are systematically giving the unfavourable decisions against the Raiders through the influence of Robert Finch. I am extremely skeptical that this could happen without atleast one of the referees going to media. You say the Raiders have worst record under the Video Ref. Can you explain how you come to this conclusion. Do you have some numbers comparing outcomes of Video Ref decisions or is it based on a gut feeling from watching games. I know as a Storm fan watching a game I am pretty sure the referees penalize our players for looking at an opposition players head. Though realistically they probably arent - much. :-) If you really think that Robert Finch is biasing the referees you should consider putting a video tape together of bad decisions or counting up numbers of dodgy decisions and sending it off to Gallop or who ever. But also consider that refs do make mistakes. Robert Finch's job is to try and minimise the mistakes but realistically all that can be done is to try and stop a ref making the same mistake over and over.

Was this article written by Phil Gould? There will always be errors in adjudicating on forward passes, just as there are errors by players in throwing those forward passes. Some element of error can never be ruled out when humans are involved. Hasler was blowing up on the weekend to take attention away from the fact that his team had blown a 4 try lead. He should turn his attention to why his defence failed and allowed the break in the first place, rather than focus on the last pass being thrown forward. If his defence worked properly then Parramatta wouldn't have been in a position to score.

Who exactly are you attacking here, Robert Finch or the Melbourne Storm. Firstly, Brett Finch moved to the Storm approximately 12 months ago. The grappling crusher tackle crap started long before that and we have been punished for it ever since. I am a Storm supporter and I can tell you we get treated a lot worse than most other teams when it comes to grapple, crusher, chicken crushing twister tackles. I admit that we did bring in the grapple tackle and I never agreed with that, it is a cheap, dirty tactic and should be taken out of the game. Problem is that now whenever a Storm player goes near the head, neck, arm of the opponent they are scrutinised more than any other team. We get penalised for grapple tackles more often than other teams and everybody just agrees and says "well you expect that from them". This is despite the Storm repeatedly providing evidence that everyone does it (Bennett started it, Bellamy got it from him at the Broncos). I agree Finch has had his time but seriously you need some better arguments than the ones you have put forward. Maybe produce some evidence that shows the Eels have been penalised more since Finch left or the Storm less since he arrived. The referees just need to be held more accountable for there mistakes and under Finch they have been protected to much. If you make a mistake in your job you would expect your boss to punish you, not protect the indefensible like Finch has done since day one.

p.s. You want to know another reason Robert Finch should not be given so much power - he was sacked by the Raiders and he and Brett left on bad terms. p.p.s Guess which team has the worst record under the Video Ref? You got it - Raiders And you scoff at the idea of bias...why dont you join those dots

Have you guys ever heard of 'perception of bias' when managing a conflict of interest? It means that even if there is no bias, then even if it is reasonable to perceive there COULD BE A BIAS – then that is enough to not allow the potential conflict to exist. So in simple terms, while you claim Brett Finch and his team might not get “favours”, there is no doubt that there is the potential for this conflict of interest or bias to exist. This potential should be enough to have ruled Robert Finch out for this position. I mean really, is Robert Finch doing such a great job that we can’t find anyone else capable of doing it – anyone who doesn’t have their son playing in the competition. This kind of rubbish is the stuff that goes on in junior football, not the first grade NRL. Mushi – you arrogantly assert: ‘You can’t make a rule or interpretation that counter acts “blatant forward passes” or “ridiculous video referees decisions”, if it is blatant or ridiculous then it is already in violation of the rule or interpretation and is the result of error in execution. No change in rule or interpretation set can affect this in any way.’ Really??? Would you like me to explain how we could cut down forward passes in our game overnight? Allow a challenge system for forward passes. 2 challenges a game (only get counted if your challenge is overturned). Easy! While we are at it, I see no reason why we cant use digital lines on the video ref decisions to accurately determine whether the ball travels forward. Finally, the rule that the ball goes back as long as it leaves the hands backwards is impossible to police. So there you Mushi, maybe if you put your mind to it you could think of ways in which Robert Finch could have improved the standard of our refereeing a long time ago. A sacked touch judge will not suffice…last weeks NRL action was ruined by poor refs and as league fans, it amazes me you are not also calling for Finch to be sacked.

and Tom, that's quite a well-reasoned arguement for his removal. Had this piece made similar arguments, PuntPal would've received widespread support I'd imagine...

I think to claim that he is biased is a bit much, but regardless I agree Finch needs to go. Seemingly every week it is the same old suspects making the same mistakes, witness the ridiculous spate of no tries for obstruction about two seasons ago (incidentally the same kind of play he claimed should have resulted in a Parra penalty instead of a Manly try on the weekend). This matter was seemingly sorted back then, but now in a ridiculous example of face saving he digs it up again in a vain attempt to imply that Manly weren't cheated out of a win on the weekend. And now we will probably have another spate of tries in which the defence was in no way obstructed being disallowed. He is more than adept at identifying problems, but the problem is he doesn't take any action to fix these problems.

Yes for someone sayng they don't think he's biased that is one hell of a diatribe on how not only is he biased but so are all the referees under him.

"Robert Finch is the father of the Melbourne Storm player Brett Finch. Ordinarily I don’t accuse someone of bias, and I am not doing so in this instance." But you've mentioned a man, his son, and put the word 'bias' out there anyway. Those dots don't need much joining. You might be surprised to learn that Brett Finch was also Robert Finch's son for every game he's played previous to this year, for four different clubs, and plenty while Robert Finch was the referee's coach/boss. If there is a conflict of interest here - and maybe there is - it hasn't just popped up recently. Also, you're suggesting by saying "but I doubt Brett Finch will ever be sent off for nothing the way Jason Ryles was a few years ago " that some kind of order has been given to referee Brett Finch differently to every other player in the competition. You're essentially calling to question the integrity of prefessional referees to show a leniancy or adjudicate differently when Brett Finch is involved. I'm happy to call "shenanigans" on some of your arguments here; it sounds like you're trying to make a point, but I couldn't see it through all blamestorming....

> Whenever someone writes about how the referee’s boss, Robert Finch, should be sacked, they will always come across > as a disgruntled fan that is just overreacting. You forgot to put "incoherent ranting" in front of "disgruntled".

You can’t make a rule or interpretation that counter acts “blatant forward passes” or “ridiculous video referees decisions”, if it is blatant or ridiculous then it is already in violation of the rule or interpretation and is the result of error in execution. No change in rule or interpretation set can affect this in any way. As for when changes in interpretations being made quick enough you can’t just change the interpretation week to week without punters and coaches alike launching into a tirade on the need for consistency. Finch has one of the toughest jobs in the NRL having to front the media with mea culpas because oh gosh the human referees made mistakes on the weekend. So what if the mistake rate is fewer and the game is faster so why do we constantly blame the officiating rather than the players and coaches for the outcomes? My point is simple, the only thing that has declined in relation to the referees is the validity of the ciriticism.

Lets hope he isnt anynear the IC..