Those wacky NRL refs, they’ve done it again haven’t they? After a round of NRL that saw more edge of the seat finishes and unlikely escapes than an entire season of MacGyver, once again the men in the middle have hogged the headlines.
And a part of me can’t help but think they’ve brought all this attention on themselves.
Once upon a time you knew where you stood with rugby league referees. Refs were the buzz-cut sporting killjoys who worked during the week as auditors for the water board, in-between yelling at the neighbourhood kids for knocking the tops off their rose bushes. On the weekends they would get their revenge on the world by policing both sides like a Christian Military Reform School Headmaster, demonstrating all the flexibility and charisma of a telegraph pole.
If throughout the course of the match a player was to accuse them of making a dud call, they would just keep blowing their whistle until you shut up. Players did this out of fear of making it into their little black book of grudges.
This has all changed in recent years with refs taking on a far cuddlier persona. Maybe its part of the push to get more ex-players officiating. Maybe its new refs boss Bill Harrigan’s celebrity charisma rubbing off on his clones. Maybe it’s just the strawberry pink shirts.
Whatever it is, suddenly they’re out there pinching the limelight with their dazzling smiles and getting their ripped torsos out for men’s fitness magazines, instead of sitting in the dingy ref’s shed studying the rulebook . Most worryingly of all, they’re getting dropped!
Dropped! The modern refs are so nice they’ve started admitting mistakes. “Sorry Sharkies,” said slick Willy this week, “we know we goofed costing you the game, two vital competition points and maybe a major sponsor, but next time at Northies the lemon squashes are on us, ok?”
This move may sound like the reasonable and polite thing to do, but how far do you get as a ref being reasonable and polite? Trust me, when you’re reffing a junior game making sure the defence is onside, only to look back to the ruck to see the ball gently rolling into no-mans land. With fifty two fingers pointing in different directions and two invisible touchies, all of a sudden there isn’t a whole lot of room left for polite and nice.
The only thing we should feel for the ref is fear, for we expect fearlessness from them when making snap decisions. To have the sword of Damocles forever hanging over their head on every play can only lead to hesitation by officials, and hesitation only leads to more errors and frustration.
So let’s give the refs their mojo back. Cancel the magazine shoots, throw out the public relations manual and give them back their white shorts and walk socks. If they stuff up, hey, chances are they’ll feel worse about it the next week than you do.
And anyway, if you really want to hold them to task, you can always just give them a spray from the stands with your fellow lunatics the following week.
Always works for me.
Vic_Arious@twitter.com
the dawesinator
Guest
sacre bleu!
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Yeah but we won't be talking about a 'bit' longer if you keep going down that road because there will always be another issue that "should" have been reviewed... Besides, if you start making referees beholden and answerable to anyone other than the referee's association and you start introducing a number of other problems and inevitably a new source of bias and perception of bias.
steve b
Guest
Its their choice digger and no it wouldnt worry me if the game was a bit longer as long as they got it close to right and their is only one interpretation the right one and i might not have never refereed a game but played in plenty where the ref got it sadly wrong a referee once told me we are untouchable so you just have to cpp it sweet so you may call us the untouchables they need to be accountable when they make bs decisions and 9 out of 10 times the video ref gets it rright use them its about the players deciding the outcome of the game not the refs ok ref
Nathan of Perth
Guest
But then it will be "oh the game has stopped again to check the review" and "oh why didn't they review this one if they reviewed that one" and "oh, our interpretation is different to the video refs..." Its not a case of don't bag the refs, its don't bag the refs when you're ignorant to the realities of being the man in the middle!
Clayts
Guest
Steve b "They're"
steve b
Guest
yeah yeah dont bag the refs the poor darlings seen to many games where the game was decided by the ref yes their only human and we all make mistakes but these guys choose to be the one in the middle so its their job to get it as right as possible and some of them just dont. I agree sack em if they have a bad one.And when their unsure about a decision go up stairs and have a look its better to be sure than sorry
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Beats the reverse - your mates giving it to your missus over a romantic holiday!
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Haha, well done. Always amuses me to see the most mistake prone members of the sporting trinity (the players) having a go at the least error prone (the officials).
Rex Ryan
Guest
Refs are necessary evils just like taxes, jobs and your mates giving it too you over a romantic holiday with the missus
Gareth
Guest
Problem is, the technology has the same flaw as the on field refs. As evidenced by the time Jamal Idris streaked away for a try while Jamie Soward bumped into the nearest blue and white thing and fell over, making him the second clumsiest guy at the ground behind the bloke in the pink shirt who slipped over and accidentally hit the red button.
B.A Sports
The ref's need more anonymity. I don’t know how you create that anonymity. Maybe a start would be not releasing who was officiating where to the public/media on a Wednesday. I mean does it really matter if you have Jason Robinson or Shayne Hayne? Why do we need to know? Maybe it should go a step further. If the TV coverage didn’t tell us who was officiating at the start of the game, we would probably pay less attention to them throughout the game.
Happy Hooker
Guest
Amazing - you can have missed tackles, dropped balls, several mistakes made by one player, yet the poor old referee makes one and gets the blame for teams losing all the time. Whilst ever humans are involved, there will be mistakes, there is no getting around that. We can strive to keep mistakes to a minimum, but they will never be eliminated completely. So get over it!
steve b
Guest
there is nothing worse than losing becayse of a refs blunder they have the tec use it so what if it adds 15 seconds to a game whats worse adding a bit of time to get it right or losing 2 comp points which means so much at the end of the season not to mention the they have just played 80 minutes to have the game decided by a dodjjy call get it right use the tec
peeeko
Roar Guru
personally i have never been able to cop Harrigan. too much of a show pony for me, despite being a good ref. Cant understand why anyone would want to buy his book