The decision I was most happy to see made in the first weekend of the finals just happened to be wrong.
I’m not happy that the officials made an incorrect call – nobody who ever held a whistle or a flag is happy to get something wrong. But across the weekend of matches I was happy that someone made a decision on what they saw and we got on with the game of football.
Late in the second half of Saturday’s game between the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and the St George-Illawarra Dragons, the Red V attempted a short kickoff to try and secure possession in a desperate attempt to win the game.
Trailing ten points to eight in the dying moments of the match they needed a miracle to avoid defeat.
Enter Shaun Lane. The Bulldogs forward caught the ball after it had rebounded from his teammate Sam Perrett behind him and Jarad Maxwell promptly awarded the Dragons the penalty.
Lane was in an offside position as he was in front of the last player to touch it who was also on the same team.
Bravo! We’ve finally seen the officials award a penalty at a crunch time of the game without hiding behind a KFC scoreboard graphic.
Dead-eye goal kicker Englishman Gareth Widdop stepped up to slot the penalty goal after the siren and the game headed to golden point.
However, on closer inspection of the replay it was revealed that veteran Dragons winger Jason Nightingale had, in contesting the kick, played at the ball after it had touched Perrettt, thereby negating the offside offence.
Lane was no longer in an offside position, as the ball had actually been last touched by an opponent.
The correct decision would have been to rule a knock on against Perrett, a scrum feed to the Dragons and likely a Bulldogs win in regular time. Instead, the Dragons got their miracle but could not take advantage of it, eventually going down 11 to 10.
Sure, we had an error from the officials. Sure, it could have ‘cost’ the Bulldogs the game and ended their season. But I was encouraged that we had a decision to make and the officials made it.
There’s a split second to judge who that ball hit and between the referee and his touch judge they missed it.
You know what? That’s sport. There were plenty of mistakes from both sides in that match, not least the failed 40/20 attempt from Widdop that gave the Bulldogs field position to ultimately kick the winning field goal.
The game likely hinged on that moment. A successful kick would give the Dragons field position to win and an unsuccessful one gifted victory to the Bulldogs.
That section of the game was played and officiated in the moment. It was the best suspense the game can provide. It was theatre.
Compare what I’ve just described to the events of the following day where the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks took on the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
The Sharks came out in finals mode and took the game by the scruff of the neck right from the start. They were tough, dominant in defence and disciplined with the ball.
The Rabbitohs were a rabble. They had a barely-fit Greg Inglis at the back being as ill-disciplined as I’ve ever seen him – and the rest of the team followed suit.
Even Luke Keary behaved like a grub to the man who once wore the crown as King of the Grubs – Paul Gallen.
Even so, the Rabbitohs had their chances. They only conceded the first try after more than 20 minutes and despite leaking two more were still alive at the break provided they started the second half with the first points.
They looked to have those points on the board when Luke Keary fielded a grubber kick in his own in-goal and streaked away to score under the posts.
The officials allowed play to progress and I thought we had a contest at 18 points to 6. Game on!
Instead, referee Matt Cecchin ruled no try and asked for the decision to be reviewed. The assistant referee Ashley Klein had spotted an obstruction on Cronulla fullback Michael Gordon and called to his colleague to penalise Souths.
Yet instead of awarding the penalty, Cecchin allowed Keary to run 100 metres before pulling it up.
Cecchin was playing Russian Roulette with his use of the video referee. If Keary pulls a hamstring way downfield, or if Valentine Holmes closes on him and tackles him short, the referee has no fallback available.
The video referee can only review action from after the previous play the ball.
So Cecchin would either have to allow play to continue from the next play the ball, likely leading to a Souths try, or he would have to justify going back 90 or so metres to award the penalty that he should have blown in the first place.
It is not the first time that this has happened and it won’t be the last. I can understand declaring a try as a live decision and then reviewing an aspect of play leading to it, but not deliberately brushing a colleague and then banking on a try so it can be reviewed.
In these two cases we have one decision made in real-time (which was later proved incorrect) but we got on with the game, and we had another where a video review was manufactured when it should not have been referred.
I have previously written that I would rather the video only be used if a team’s captain challenges a decision. In both cases we would have had the right result and the heat would be turned from the officials on to the captains.
As it turns out I was much more pleased to see Maxwell award the penalty because he was doing his job. He may have even relied on his touch judge and backed his judgment.
His reward for that confidence? His season is over. He was left off the on-field appointments this week.
So what was Matt Cecchin’s punishment for ignoring his assistant and gambling on a try to concoct a video review?
He’ll be the controlling referee on Friday night, ranking him in the top two referees this week, with Ben Cummins as his assistant.
Forget calling it as you see it – just make sure the correct ‘process’ is followed.
Good luck to everyone this weekend!
Tim's Favourite Fly-By Gibberer
Guest
Pete, of course we will never attain perfection, but we should nevertheless aim for it. In this instance, I think that means giving the referees more and better support to do their difficult job.
Tim's Favourite Fly-By Gibberer
Guest
I don't think it's a matter of philosophy, just context, ie: the referees operate within a different context to the players. And yes, I think "robots" probably are the answer, long term. It seems like we settled on the video ref as the beginning and the end of technical assistance (because it required little additional expense, no doubt, as the cameras are there anyway). The player tracking technology already that is already pervasive could easily be adapted to give real-time, unambiguous monitoring of things like off-sides and forward passes, for example. Are you aware of any movement at NRL HQ for more and better technical assistance to the referees? In the mean time, I think the answer is a continuous programme of improvement for the referees (already happening and bearing fruit), a simplification of some of the rules, and a commitment from the media to show some maturity and stop white-anting the officials.
pete bloor
Guest
Ah but more often than not the argument is raised to highlight that the referee's are being held to a much higher standard, one typically close to perfection, and then the question is that standard fair. Infallibility, which is where you are setting the standard, seems somewhat unreasonable to me. It is often also accompanied by many other comments as to how people believe they could do a better job, people that would admit they would never be capable of playing NRL. So we believe that people with less ability than the average fan should be held to an expected level of complete infallibility? The question also needs to be asked that if you are right and the integrity of a match is immediately lost when an official makes an error, and we can safely assume that every group of officials will make an error, then we have no right to assume the maintenance of this integrity and there for no basis for outrage when it is lost.
pete bloor
Guest
The amount of times you hear "well they've just thrown the rule book out" when a commentator disagrees with the discretion being used by the referee is only equaled by "It may not be in/by the rules but it's [a try / not a penalty / a penalty] to me" when they think the rules need to have discretion applied.
EagleWal
Roar Rookie
Excellent work Mick.
Dan Eastwood
Expert
Steveng, some teams allow the game to flow by not infringing. The referees use penalties as a deterrent so that they can facilitate a game of football. If they allow the first player to keep his hand on the ball, thereby denying a team who has earned it a quick play-the-ball, the offending team will keep doing it. That's what happened in 2006 - the rucks were slow that year, but most people have forgotten it - which is why second ref was brought in for 2009 to identify these things. Basically, the referee will allow the game to flow if the players permit it.
Dan Eastwood
Expert
Gibberer, I must confess here that although I didn't fail Philosophy at uni, I only did one subject on it (Reality, Ethics & Beauty, for the record) and I didn't do very well. If I accept the false equivalence premise, are the incorrect decisions also weighted? Also how does human error from officials fit within the framework of the contest? In my view it must be accommodated, or else we need to program robots to referee the games (programmed by humans of course). It's problematic. You need to comment here more often and particularly when you disagree with me!
Dan Eastwood
Expert
Here is the link to that article http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/06/23/play-the-ball-with-the-foot-thats-so-2008/ Sleiman
Dan Eastwood
Expert
You make good points Sleiman. If you want an example of how hard it is to get all the refs on board with that you can read my goal line drop out example
Dan Eastwood
Expert
Andrea and Mick, I have written about the forward pass and you cen see my thoughts here http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/07/01/a-forward-pass-is-physics-and-so-is-david-klemmer/ Both Mick's points are valid
G
Guest
The rant got a bit out of control there...
Muzz
Guest
Like i said Alex, You'll see what you want to see! Meanwhile, Cummins stats have been a hot topic across most media outlets so it's not just me. Triple m's hotline went into meltdown.
Alex L
Roar Rookie
Muzz; when the Roosters lose the penalty count it's usually the case that other sides have been penalized for infringing quite a bit too, they just infringed less than the Roosters. 7 is still a small sample size, especially because it's 5 teams: Souths (last years premiers), Storm (a team notorious for adapting to how the referee rules the ruck), Sharks (generally ill disciplined games by both sides), Manly (prior to losing any semblance of quality forwards, Manly rarely lost penalty counts, especially at Brookvale), and the Dragons who have been quite well disciplined under Paul McGregor.
steveng
Roar Rookie
The penalties that really annoy me (and its consistently given every game in the first 20 minutes) is in tackles when the opposing players are getting off the tackled player and are in those tackles, most referees expect players to get off the tackled player in 1 second, and then if they have a hand on the ball, and if they have a hand on the face and if they have a hand on the tackled players leg(s) and all these minor things result in a penalty straight away. All these sorts of minor things in a tackle are irritating to watch and are slowing the game down and giving an advantage to either sides at the beginning and throughout the game. In the Broncos vs Cowboys game the refs let the game flow and didn't penalise these sorts of things continually and that is why the game turned out to be the fastest and the best game of the season. That is what I'm talking about, these days the games are only as good as the referees let the game to be, and not the other way around.
Muzz
Guest
That was quite entertaining, G Cheers.
G
Guest
You think your team is hard done by?! How about their immunity at the judiciary as witnessed by Evans getting away with shoulder charge, Maloney kicking someone and JWH running free with his elbow cocked, not to mention all the times Napa has gotten off. They develop noone, instead poaching the best u20s players from other clubs and claiming them as their own juniors. And lets not get started on the salary cap. As a neutral fan who doesn't like either club I can say Souths beat them in the preliminary final last year due to Ben Te'o coming on and belting them, with Sam Burgess and co joining in. Playing the has-been Minichiello at fb over RTS certainly didn't help either, he scored a try but made a couple of shocking knock-ons from kicks. And lets not forget that their coach Trent Robinson is on the NRL RULES COMMITTEE and knew about ruck interpretation changes months before 14 other coaches! Despite this Craig Bellamy proved himself a class above him last week. They have many ill-disciplined forwards; this leads to the losing of penalty counts. It would seem Cummins doesn't let himself be intimidated by their stars and rich benefactors and so officiates as he sees it.
G
Guest
Cummins must be the only ref not in Uncle Nicks pocket
Muzz
Guest
No Alex, the Roosters didn't move away from anything. Did you read Buzz's article?Some of those stats are mind blowing!!! But i guess people see what they want to see. The so called top teams turn into little angels when Cummins is in-charge and rarely infringe against the minor premiers. Meanwhile you claim that it's normal to concede more penalties against quality opposition.Can't have it both ways mate. It's a point that is always conveniently missed by most with the focus then shifted on the penalties the Roosters concede.
Alex L
Roar Rookie
Muzz, my point was that the Roosters may well have infringed more against better opposition, which is probably true for most sides, combine that with the tactic of giving away try line penalties that the Roosters seemed to move away from in the midway of this season and it's no surprise to me. Even when the Roosters won the comp they lost the penalty count far more often than they won it. 7 games (against only five sides) is a very small sample size statistically.
a
Guest
Dont you dare robbed the Cowboys again no scoring of 7th tackle like they did again the Sharks last time