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NRL touch judges seem to be living up to their expectation of doing absolutely nothing so far in the 2014 season.
While referees have been very heavily in the spotlight in recent times, the flag-bearing men on the sideline seem to go unnoticed.
Which is fitting, as they don’t seem to notice what’s going on out on the field either.
The touch judges have various roles. They’re the referees’ third and fourth pairs of eyes on forward passes, offside calls, strips, knock-ons, general plays near the sideline, any time the ball or the player goes into touch, and to let the ref’s know if there has been a conversion.
But it is amazing how much they miss. In just one game of rugby league, anybody watching can notice many un-called forward passes.
It seems that all 20,000 people in the stadium notice when the ball travels forward, but the touch judge on too many occasions does not. It is highly frustrating for everybody watching, and it seems they have no confidence to make these calls.
An extreme example would be Sonny Bill Williams blatantly forward pass to put Shaun Kenny-Dowall over to score in the 64th minutes against the Bulldogs in Round 11.
The ball obviously travelled forward, and it would be hard for the on-field officials to call on it, but what about the touch judge? He was right in line with it.
The touch judges also have the simple role of signalling when the ball goes out, or any knock-on in general play near the sideline they can see.
In Monday night’s Rabbitohs game against the Dragons, Peter Mata’utia put the ball down dead in-goal and the decision went upstairs.
The touch judge was standing right on top of it, and should’ve clearly seen the ball get grounded on.
It was probably a good idea to go to the video ref, but Shayne Hayne called try, which meant the touch judge indicated to Hayne that Mata’utai in fact did score.
I’m not sure what ball he was watching.
We’ve actually had to go to the video ref this year on a 40/20 call in Round 4, when Canberra attempted one against South Sydney.
Guess what? It was overturned, as the touch judge got it wrong.
While the criticism has been centred on referees this year, it’s impossible for them to see everything that happens on the field.
But when the touch judges aren’t doing their jobs, that’s when we see all kinds of trouble.
And that’s before we even get started on the video referees.
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