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The officiating debacle that helped see the North Queensland Cowboys eliminated once again from an NRL finals series will understandably be on the minds of many fans over the coming days.
The expected line of criticism will be the standard of the officials themselves. Why are the referees not up to scratch? How hard is it for them to make the correct decisions? And so on and so forth.
Questioning the referee’s competence is reasonable enough, but there is something unsatisfying about such a line of attack. Fans of the game have been questioning the competence of referees since day one, but other than the odd case every now and then, referees are generally professional enough to do their job.
Just as players make mistakes, so do referees. And just as players make mistakes that sometimes costs their team the match, it will happen that a referee’s error will eventually cost a team the same.
Of course, the argument arises that referees shouldn’t be making such errors since their control of a game is the backdrop against which players are supposed to play. If the referees are unable to do their job, then the players are unable to do theirs.
A fair call, no doubt. Nonetheless, whilst player reviews are a regular feature of coaching, in this professional era, referees are also being reviewed and coached on their performances.
The professionalism of the referees is not so poor that it warrants wholesale reviewing.
What does require reviewing is the purpose of the referee in the modern game. Just what is his or her role?
Are they required to uphold the rules? Every single one of them? And if not every rule, then which ones? If referees are supposed to protect the rules, does that mean their real job is to punish players? Or are they meant to guide players and coach them to their limits during a match?
One of the main complaints of the modern fan is the seemingly random nature of the calls a referee makes. Referee interpretation seems to be a buzzword these days.
Should the rules of the game be altered then so that there is less interpretation and more black and white? What will such changes to do the game itself? This leads to the question of what kind of game does rugby league want or need to be.
As can be seen, there are many questions that need answering. And each question – and its answer – impacts significantly on the whole fabric of the game.
This is why it is not the professionalism of the referees that is in question, but their purpose.
Let’s hope we – and they – find out who they are meant to be sooner rather than later.
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