Fire the refs? How about we fix the rules?

Well, it seems that despite all the focus on poor refereeing over the last few weeks, they have not found a solution. The first half of the Souths & Bulldogs game has shown that the refs still can't use their eyes; and even more appalling is the fact that video refs can't get it right. 99% of those watching at home would have done a better job as video refs than the paid officials. Come on NRL, it is not that hard!

Just read a article today, Dessie Hasler wants to adopt the American video replay of having a screen near the field and the refs have alook at replays and make the call. Now this is a true story. I dont watch NFL, i cant stand the stop in play or the slow nature of the game. The yanks love this, good for them, i never want league slowed down to a walk, or i will walk. Anyhow, my total experience of NFL would probably be much similar to my other Aussie code experience, about 3 minutes. That was it, but in those 3 minutes i seen a brilliant idea. The refs stopping to make a call on the captains challenge. Straight off, i seen that this was absolutely brilliant idea, along with what dessie has mentioned, the refs on the field and touchlines look at video replays. Now, if i could notice this in my 3 minutes of overseas football, which is like 50 years ahead of our game in Marketing, Promotion, crowds, ref calling and even mascots, then why has our dinosaurs not seen this, surely someone has watched NFL, and more than the 3 minutes i have watched. Look, we need the biggest broom bunnings have got, and sweep it through these old dinosaurs deadwood. No honest, they are hopeless, 3 years to take a cornerpost out of play, come-on, it is not going to get any better with another dinosaur aussie running the show. He will probably go to America, then England, and then probably stop into China, see what they are up to, mate i watched 3 minutes of TV and found future change. It is becoming boring to be honest, it is like our commission is in slow motion, i dont care the finals are on, do something. Say something, hire someone with a brain and sort out the naming of the code, bring the whole thing under one name, and fix junior football, zero tolerence on parents. And again, i ask for someone with a brain to fix the rules, they are outdated and wrong. No more going to the video ref after this year, no more, i hate him, them, the lot of them , whoever they are, dinosaurs, mungos, fools and gotargs. :)

Why can we have a main ref and a pocket ref who look after both teams? That way we always have one ref looking after the 10m etrc. and the other just assisting. That way we can have the most senior refs controlling the flow of the game, rather than young rookies.

Not having a good day, i just worked out i am a beer ferry. :) Oh well, what can you do. Yesterday i drove all the way to Blackbottoms(blackbutt) for some gold medal award winning pies. Little signs like this make's me wonder.

Well, like I said, there is a trade-off to be made between officiating accuracy, speed of game and money.

The AFL is that Canada club soda, all glossy and showy. The NRL is the Beer ferries, Blam, we try to look good what happens, Blam, beer ferry gone. Blam, a small group (qrl) wondering what to do to combat this, Blam blam, another couple of beer ferries gone.. Dont get me wrong, i love the Beer ferries, ugly and disgustingly cute, every mother should own one. But when our beer ferries look up to that great big brewers house for inspiration, blam, blam, blam, we get shot to pieces. :) Gotta love the beer ferries.

How about just one simple rule change switch "Benefit of the Doubt" from the Attacking Side to the Defensive Side. Basically, if you cannot be sure that a player scored or not....No try! We tend to be rewarding Doubtful decisions. Why not start rewarding defensive sides for being good enough to place doubt in a lot of these touch and go instances by just performing plain old good defence. Another thing, why not go back to the old rule which worked well for over 100 years....A try is only a try when the ball has been forced in the in-gold. Bugger this "No separation" garbage... The trouble is, Bill Harrigan has left it up to all of the referees to apply "interpretation" when making decisions when keeping it as simple as possible tends to work better when applied correctly. I believe that if you made these two changes, we would not see even a quarter of the contentious decisions that we see now.

Yes, but the NFL make 100 billion a year, not 1 billion. We need to keep costs down at the moment, and not make the mistake by adding extra personel will fix all our problems. Fix the 10 cent problems and use the money wisely. Wasting millions on CEO and other wasteful endevours must stop before they start. Like i said, a simple American ex NFL ceo will be fine to run our game. Their was a woman from the Green bay Packers looking for a CEO job at the Broncos not long ago, she would be perfect to run our game. Give her a million, save 1 million right their. And no more sideline or video ref officials, we have enough now all making mistakes, why add to the problem. The problems the game has are all fixable , we just need a brain to do so. At the moment, the game has no brain.

We don't need more touch judges at all. They are basically useless. 1 is fine. I would like to see more in goal ref though. How many calls are "refs decision" around this area..

People tend to reference the American Gridiron football when they start talking about replays and challenges, but its worth looking holistically at the system before trying to pick bits and pieces. The NFL uses an eight man officiating team (plus other assistants like the chain gang) for managing their matches. A Head Referee who makes the final decisions and relays calls and then a number of assistant officials. The key thing here is that all of these officials have very carefully laid out duties, and in a lot of cases, particularly player-roles that they have to watch like a hawk. Everyone knows what his task is. All of these officials can signal that an infringement, which is then relayed to the referee who makes the call and announces it. Replays are only a single component of a very elaborate officiating system that very rarely borks a call. They are not there to make calls - they are there to confirm calls made by an already very efficient system. It is not their magic bullet. Would be akin to having an extra four officials on the field, all with special tasks - one might have the specific role of watching every decoy and dummy runner for obstruction, for instance, whilst another drops well back and focuses on the full-back when the kick comes in. Now personally I think that something along those lines is physically workable and might reduce rates of officiating mistakes, at the cost of some game-speed. The problem, of course, is that we make life so hostile for referees and officials that it would be almost impossible to generate officials in the numbers you would need for that. There is a sliding scale of trade-offs - speed of play versus accuracy of officiating. You can push it in either direction, but it is a continuum. And just as an aside. Firing a referee for a clanger of a call is akin to firing a player for getting a 4-week suspension, a red card or dropping the ball as he's going in for a try.

I think the video ref should only be used in challanges, Also agree in brinigng back the in goal judge. But i still think on the line should be out, Its much easier to interpret than all the ball being out, or half the ball or whatever such scenario. I would laso like to challange your first part saying the refereeing has been poor. I disagree, the refereeing has been satisfactory in my view, THe video box has let everyone down. I also like the idea of 25 minute quarters, 5 minute breaks at quarter time, 10 minute break at half time.

I think Touch judges at the moment are proving to be of little use with too much influence from the video ref, In my opinion the idea of a challenge is good, and I would be pleased if the video ref was only used in that circumstance rather than for almost every single one of the many stoppages games have.

I like the idea of 4 quarters. I mean just make it a tiny 2-3min break so we can get all our football without ads being slipped in at bad spots and us missing kickoffs. You could call quarter time at the first natural break in play after the 20min mark. Captain's challenge is a good idea.

Here,here just simplify those contentious rules then leave them alone so as not to confuse everyone. Tell me how many rule changes soccer has made over the years. Main rule is that the refs decision is final.

I like the idea of 4 extra pairs of eyes out there. Except I don't mind 2 guys in the middle, one controlling the defensive side and one the attacking. 8 officials plus the guys upstairs would probably send the NRL broke but surely with that many rule experts out there they won't be able to get it wrong. There was talk the other day of doing away with guy upstairs and having the guys in the middle make the call with the benefit of replays. I think this idea also has some merritt. I like the idea of challenges. How many and when I don't mind but it adds another dimension to the game. I'd put them in the hands of the coaches though. The captain being out in the centre already has a lot going on without having to worry about when they should use one. In the post match interviews it's always the coaches who are the harshest critics of the refs, let's give them some power (and responsibility) to have some influence on the game. I think half of something over the line puts too much grey area into the rule. On the white stuff and your out/ball is over is as black and white as it gets. I'm a big fan of quarters and anything that lengthens the product that is an NRL game. Just a 2 or 3 minute on field break after 25 mins of play won't have a huge impact on the flow of the game. I'd also like to see a 'game play' game clock ie. the ball goes out or there's a stop in play, the ref doesn't have to blow his whistle 3 times the clock is automatically stopped until play restarts.

They certainly have made things more difficult than they need to be! The referee needs to be invested with authority, not have it spread among several others. All rule changes should be addressed with this in mind. That's what I think.

Every time you add a extra person to the sinario, you are overcomplicating things,. The video ref, only needs 1 person, not 2, or 3, someone surgested we let the refs at the ground look at the replay and they can make the call. I like this, and if we had the coach's challenge it would probably work fine. We dont need extra touch line refs, if again we had the coach challenge, then if he sees a dud call he can challenge it, otherwise hold his peace. Overcomplicating the game is what is wrong with this game. Get rid of the strip forward (always have a scrum, dont ever send a one on one tackle strip to the video ref for gods sake) get rid of the torso, get rid of the video ref from any knock forward decision and ninety percent of your problems dissapear overnight. The people running our game cant see this, they are now blinded by a billion. They will probaby call in some consultants, do a servey, hold a enquiry, and 100 million dollars later they will take the corner post out of play. ? That is a example, but you get the drift. This game needs to be very careful, simple 10 cent problems could turn into our own worst nitemare if someone with a helf brain does not get control of the CEO position. The people in charge now cant see the problem, their eyes are conditioned to not seeing, or they are simply looking to hard. Its right in front of you John Grant, open your eyes mate.