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I enjoyed seven years of my life as an NRL match official, with the start of the week to the end of the week made up of preparation, game day, review and recovery.
Much like the lamb roast on a Sunday, minor details like work and family became the vegetables and gravy – supplementary to the main meal.
The question I’m asked most about it now is: “Do you miss it?”
My answer seems to be always the same. Yes, I miss the 80 minutes on game day – but everything else? Watching the game again that night, reviewing it with a match-day assessor the next morning, then the early week bash-up on the training paddock before we prepare to do it all again to go out and do my best so some has-been behind a computer screen can tell me what I did wrong?
No, I don’t miss any of that.
In fact, plenty of people told me prior that I wouldn’t understand how much time I would have, free of football-related constraints, until I had realised it for myself.
The only exception is when I see something that I know I wouldn’t have done myself. It’s not usually a single decision – anybody can go one way or another depending on many factors – it’s when positioning is wrong, or a signal is incorrect that are really bread and butter of getting to first grade.
I saw a touch judge on Monday night wave a ball dead when it rolled into the in-goal, and it should have been signalled a different way, with a sideways figure of eight. I started to fire up about it before remembering that I had become a cranky old retired touchie, so getting annoyed with what is a very subtle difference in signals served no useful purpose. I decided to leave it alone.
Until a day later, when I was still annoyed, so I mentioned it in this article.
Which made me think about the other things in rugby league that really annoy me – and they aren’t about refereeing.
Firstly, why do spectators yell out and boo about the ten-metre defensive line when the players they are yelling at are never going to be penalised?
We see it many times across a weekend, most notably at a 20-metre restart after a kick has gone dead. If the ball is being brought back out to the 20 and the opposing players are retreating to get to the 30-metre line to be onside, they are entitled to run backwards while they are facing the ball carrier.
They are only going to be penalised if they contact the opposing player prior to him making a ten-metre gain.
The number of times I see a player run ten metres forward and then get dragged down at the 35-metre mark while the boos reach a crescendo amazes me. Hello? Your team has just made a 15-metre gain while you’re complaining about an ‘offside’ player who has retreated more than the ten metres he is required?
People, get a grip!
Secondly, idiots at junior footy games who want to jump the fence and get involved. I was critical of the handling of the Fifita brothers incident last year because of the miscommunication and the unnecessary escalation of the conflict.
I was not privy to all the information at the time, except at least we knew they were affiliated with the team and were legitimately inside the playing area.
I was acting as ground manager for our local junior club on Saturday when our Under-16s had a scuffle with their opposing team. There were no punches thrown – which I can only say reinforces the NRL’s stance taken in the last two years – despite almost all the players being involved in grabbing and pushing.
Until one idiot jumped the fence and ran on the field to push one of the players.
A whole lot of adrenalin clouded in aggression was threatening to overwhelm the participants, let alone the spark provided from an outsider.
Thankfully, through the outstanding work of the match officials and the leadership from cool heads on either team, the whole incident did not escalate to an all-in brawl, which I have seen dozens of times in my 20 years of refereeing.
Finally, from the same day of junior footy, why can’t people put their rubbish in the bin?
When there are bins around, why do people throw it on the ground so that it can blow away? I know that The Roar is a sporting website dedicated to the games we love, however we can’t forget that we are people within a community as well.
Our ground adjoins a tributary of the Georges River, meaning that a lot of the rubbish left on the ground will end up in the water, before flowing into Botany Bay and ultimately the Tasman Sea. It’s unsightly, it’s unnecessary and it requires personal responsibility from individuals.
On Saturday a young player – probably in an Under-7s team – was kicking a Powerade bottle along the ground as I was walking past.
“Mate, we kick footballs around here, not rubbish. You’ve got a whole park to kick a ball around so that needs to go into the bin.”
Either I wasn’t heard, or I was ignored.
“Pick the bottle up and put it in the bin,” I persisted, but by now he was a metre ahead of me and the distance was increasing.
I reached out in front out and caught his shirt by the shoulder, gaining his attention so that the empty drink bottle could be retrieved and put in the bin. Before I could get a word to the boy a voice from the side called out: “Don’t touch my child!”
I looked up to see a woman (presumably his mother) scolding me for my behaviour. I apologised, said I did touch his shoulder but understood that I shouldn’t have.
Our club president walked past at that instant and said to me: “So she wasn’t happy with what you did, but was happy for him to keep kicking the rubbish?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. I still don’t.
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