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Rugby league referee Matt Cecchin has come up smelling roses in the major collision farce with Cowboy skipper Johnathan Thurston last Saturday night. Thurston’s been charged under the banner of a careless, reckless, or intentional act, but Cecchin put himself in harm’s way with his poor field position judgment.
He was in no-man’s land, and could just as easily been cleaned up by the try-scorer James Maloney, as he was by Thurston.
Hanging in the balance at the judiciary tonight is Thurston’s availability for the mouth-watering Origin 3 decider in a fortnight.
Tonight is a non-event, and a waste of space even talking about it.
But if Thurston cops a two-match holiday, misses Origin 3, and NSW takes out the series at Suncorp where there’ll be 52,000 avid Queenslanders on deck, all hell will break loose.
I vividly recall calling the 1988 Origin 2 on 2KY with my son Andrew when referee Mick Stone sin-binned Immortal-to-be Wally Lewis for dissent.
Within seconds a monster wave of yellow XXXX cans from full to empty were airborne, virtually covering the field. It took nearly 10 minutes to clear the deck – amazing unforgettable scenes
And Queensland won 16-6 to clinch the series. Imagine the revolt had the Maroons lost?
But the Thurston-Cecchin fiasco begs the question: is someone at the judiciary seeking his 15 minutes of “fame” to make a major impact on a game that will stop the nation?
No Thurston on duty will impact alright. He’s a class unit, and a vital cog in the Maroon machinery, but there’ll be no justice if he cops one game, let alone two.
And the thought of Cecchin getting off scot-free doesn’t sit well, when he was at least 50% responsible for the collision.
Many NRL players reckon two refs on duty means there’s a bigger danger of them impeding play. And they are quite right, especially if they are poor positional whistlers.
The AFL has three umpires on duty on a far bigger playing surface, yet they impede often.
Rugby’s finding the same problem.
In the 15-man code, refs position themselves near the attacking side’s pivots, and often force the halfback, or ball-clearer, to change direction.
Get out of there, you’re blocking traffic.
While football (soccer) doesn’t have a problem, it’s played at a far more leisurely pace.
So let’s see what happens at the NRL judiciary tonight.
Will it be another black mark, or a touch of sanity?
For all the right reasons the latter would be accepted by the vast majority of sports fans.