How to improve the standard of NRL referees

Not a bad plan. Steal a page from soccer and let the touch judges police the offside line--letting the ref worry about more important things then where to stand during the play the ball. Also, steal a page from American football and let the touch judges signal the ref if they notice something that he doesn't. If all five are capable of awarding a penalty, less would be missed. Of course the ref still has the final say on whether or not to award a touch judge's decision.

Here I go again, argueing against my own thoughts.. If going back to one ref will improve the game, WHY did we bring in a second one to help?. before stepping back, ask, WHY was the change made< I think we will find it was to improve the standard of reffing... ooops, pass another drawing board!. it's gonna be a long year... Go Manly!.

With all due respect B.A I don't think you have grasped the concept of "black and white". As you say "The argument is in whether Farrah played at the ball, and that comes down to opinion". That by very definition is a grey area as it is subjective. Black and white is a definitive rule. Cut and dry. I mentioned above that the rule should be that if a defending player dislodges the ball, regardless of whether it is played at or not, then it is play on. So in this scenario did Farah's foot cause the ball to come loose? Yes. So it is play on. No need to rely on a perception that Farah "altered his running gait", or whether it was accidental or not. His actions caused the ball to come loose. Cut and dry. By the way Im not trying to discount the try. Just trying to refine the rules so that there aren't any grey areas to cause confusion and this subsequent uproar. My rule changes are actually in favour of the try being awarded.

"He attended Lurnea Public School and Westfield Sports High School before his family moved to Brisbane.[2] In Brisbane Folau attended Marsden State High School from where he was selected for the Queensland Schoolboys squad in the Australian Under-15 Championships." You can find that on the wikipedia article about Israel Folau. He qualified as a Queenslander under the rules.

Nagas, Sterling, Uate? Hunt moved to Brisbane when he was 9. He represented South East Queensland Stingers when he was 13. He qualified as a Queenslander under the rules. Tonie Carroll started his club career with Eastern Suburbs Tigers. Represented Australian schoolboys while attending Beenleigh High school. He qualified as a Queenslander under the rules.

EagleJack By the rule book, it was a try. Thats black and white. How do you make that situation more black and white? If Hampstead believed the ball was played at, then it was play on, try. That is black and white. The argument is in whether Farrah played at the ball, and that comes down to opinion, you can't change that. I guess you could make a rule that "if a player loses control of a ball it is a knock-on regardless of whether the ball is played at". But then you will have the ball stripped out in every tackle, stacks on the mill... who's got the ball... don't fight for yards in the tackle, you'll lose the ball, don't try to offload, you'll lose the ball.

Bahaha - stop picking people like Hunt, Carroll, Folau & Inglis for QLD and your State might earn some credibility!!

B.A, the problem with the current rules is that no matter what button Sean Hampstead pressed last Wed night, Harrigan would have been able to come out and justify the decision. A try or no-try ruling can both be explained by the current rulebook. That has to change. There was nothing black or white about the decision.

I am a Broncos, QLD and Australia supporter. I would like to say Sam Casiano IS a kiwi!! He is from New Zealand. He has represented New Zealand. Can we keep some integrity in the State Of Origin? Thank You.

"We want black and white rules. No grey areas" Thats all well and good, but you can't always remove grey areas. The black and white rules say the Inglis try in Origin was a try, yet this seems to be the decison that has divided opinion and has sparked all of this ludicrous reaction to officiating.

it is impossible to expect perfection from referees that is like expecting player to never throw a forward pass knock on a ball or make an illegal tackle, we can't expect our refs to be perfect but we can take some of the pressure off them by giving some power to coaches through the game. If you have a trigger happy agro coach, it's his team that will have the potential to suffer, and trust me either the players or management won't allow that to happen for long.

One decision that gets reviewed when challenged by a trigger happy aggro coach is not going to provide a systemic relief to refereeing problems.

Are you serious!!! we don't need more referees I think we need to introduce something like a mid game contest. Put a button in the coaches box and if they disagree with a referee decision than they get one contest a game. Practically this means... say there is a penalty called (like in origin one dangerous tackle) the coach presses the contest button, this lights up on the big screen, time off is blown, then the video ref can than look at the decision made by the onfield referee and has the right to over rule. If they over rule the onfield ref's decision then the contest is given back to the coach. If the decision stands the coach looses the contest. This means there is instant accountability for the refs and puts more pressure on them to get it right, but if they do get it wrong than there is an opportunity for the coaches to get an instant result from it, if the coach chooses not to contest than they have no right to complain, if they contest a right decision than they have no reason to complain. seems fair to everyone. two refs works for me it has made the game on the whole a lot fairer.

It is, but you have to lay the groundworks and, as with almost everything in sport, it starts with your grassroots. You need to get more people to referee and you need to get them early on. When you have the ref numbers up, you can build your elite structures on that. As much as people seem to think refereeing is just about sorting yourself out, there are limits to that - just as you can't simply "lift your game" to go from a first-grade NSWRL player up to an Origin-level player. The mix of athleticism, perception, man-management and mental-fortitude for the top flight does not exist in everyone so to really lift the standard for referees you need about ten years to develop the up and comers and a lot of cattle in the grassroots to pick from.

Some excellent thoughts, Lordy. I'm all for the one referee. That system would provide more consistency and consequently fewer complaints from the players. With one ref, the line will be drawn in the sand from the outset, not two lines. We have some promising talent coming through the refereeing ranks but they just aren't ready for the big stuff at this point in time. My feeling is that we do not have enough top quality whistle blowers for 8 games per round. Would there be a problem with maybe two of our best refs doubling up on any given round? Is there a problem with, let's say, Tony Archer officiating at a Friday game and backing up on Monday?

"You evolve the rules to remove subjective guidelines that are open to interpretation. We want black and white rules. No grey areas." These can be dangerous because they can almost always open themselves up to gaming and exploitation by players working with the rulebook. All of a sudden you have referees with no option but to penalise players under what can often be soft or dubious circumstances because of the letter of the law.

Just a point regarding the 20 you have there; you also use qualified refs for your touch judges, of which going by your proposal you have 4 instead of 2 per match. Across eight matches a week (not counting that you also need top refs for Toyota Cup matches) you are looking at 40 refs per round for the first-grade NRL, not counting another set of emergencies and backups for Long Term Injuries (referees cop injuries doing this stuff as well). Doubled for the Toyota Cup and you're probably looking at a required pool of 120 top-notch referees, up to 6% of your total referee's pool. And then you have to accommodate the NSWRL, QRL, CRL and SG Ball comps. All of these would require near-elite status referees as well. All of a sudden you have a good 15-20% of your referees tied down in elite level competition, probably shoe-horning a lot of people that aren't making the grade. You want increases in referee quality you need an enormous jump in your available pool to pull this off. Referees and players are really two sides of the same coin. To contrast, FFA has on the books 8,000 whistleblowers and considers that to be a bit of a crisis (well, the big crisis is pushing the Level 4 junior refs to be Level 1 elites, because we only have 200 of the latter).

Your point on consistency is correct. We all want consistency. How do you get consistency? You evolve the rules to remove subjective guidelines that are open to interpretation. We want black and white rules. No grey areas. I have mentioned previously the positive decision this year to change the rule in relation to defending players knocking the ball down with their arms, when in the act of tackling an attacking player as he passed the ball. Previously it was subjective and the ref had to interpret whether it was "played at" or "not played at". This year it is "played at" 100% of the time. Tackle count restarts or scrum feed to the attacking team. Simple. No grey areas. This rule could be applied to an incident similar to Farah's dislodging of the ball in the Inglis try. Was his foot responsible for the ball coming loose? Yes. So play on. None of this "well it appears he changed his running gait which means that he played at the ball". Way too subjective. We want black and white. That is the only way to truly get consistency. The refs are victims of the material they are working with. Fixing this will assist in fixing many poor decisions. I think Fittler getting involved is a good thing. We need more ex-players forming a committee to refine the current rules. They understand the game. Throw in Joey Johns, Lockyer, Wally Lewis and Tallis. It can only be a positive for the game.

Picking the best refs in Origin would go a long way to fixing the standard, in Origin at least. The best refs are overlooked as they do not kiss Billy's arse enough, one such ref was recently overlooked for the GF for this very reason. "Much of the rest of the day was then spent trying to coerce referees into signing a letter of support for Harrigan and co-coach Stuart Raper, drawn up by Origin referee Matt Cecchin, a Harrigan supporter."No one will sign it," one leading referee said. "It would be done under duress." Clearly we know why Cecchin was chosen for Origin...