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I like to think that I’m fairly open-minded and will embrace any new technology that comes around.
However, when it comes to sport, I’m a dinosaur. I’m not the biggest fan of technology replacing humans in the middle of the park. After all, human error is part and parcel of whatever sport it is that we love. Growing up playing soccer, I had my fair share of fouls called against me when the player had run into me and flopped on the ground. I’ve been given out multiple times in cricket erroneously.
Officiating error is part of the game and should remain.
That said, where rules are black and white and officials consistently make errors in their rulings, technology should be available to help avoid this. A black-and-white rule has little to no ambiguity about it. For example, a legal pass in a game of rugby league must go backwards out of the hands. If the pass goes forward, even by a millimetre, out of the hands, that pass is considered forward.
So, why do so many passes appear forward? A perfectly logical explanation has to do with physics and camera angles. Players throwing the ball may throw a flat pass but have it appear to be forward because of the angle and the apparent direction that the ball travels after leaving the hands. Newton’s first law of motion makes it difficult for an object in motion (the player) to throw an object in a different direction to which he is travelling.
The forward pass rule, honestly, should be one of the simplest rules to police because the rule itself leaves no room for error statistically. Either a pass travels forward or it does not. One easy way to measure a forward pass is simply to take the angle of release out of the hands which can be measured quite simply by technology already being trialled.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
One thing that must happen for this to be successful is that the Bunker, referees and linesmen must be taken out of the decision-making process. Let the data decide whether the ball travelled forward. Set a maximum allowable angle of degrees out of the hand. More than +0.5 degrees? That constitutes a forward pass.
Communicating the data to the field should be relatively straightforward. This can work in one of two ways. The first way has the information relayed to the referee who blows the whistle to stop play and awards a scrum at the spot of the forward pass. The second way has the information transmitted in real-time to generate a sound, like the six-again bell. Upon hearing the bell, the referee blows the whistle and awards a penalty from the spot of the pass. Defensive teams can then claim to be saved by the bell!
As a Cowboys fan, I’m still upset by the blatant forward pass from Moses in the first half of the Eels match. However, many of my dear Eels supporters are equally upset by the apparent forward pass from Valentine Holmes to Murray Taulagi in the second half. Certainly, upon review, those two passes appear to travel forward. To me, the ball appeared to leave Holmes’s hands backwards whilst Moses definitely had his hands facing forwards, but perhaps my bias interfered with an accurate diagnosis.
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Settling this problem once and for all must be a priority for the NRL. Taking that decision out of the hands of the on-field referees, and especially out of the Bunker’s hands, allows the scientific, mathematical data to determine whether a pass travels forward. Fast, accurate decisions must then be communicated on the field to ensure that no more time-wasting occurs.
Getting rid of the forward passes removes one of the biggest causes of concern for NRL fans, utilising technology straight to the referee allows the game to flow and the technology provides certainty on the field in real-time that the correct decision, one way or another, has been made. Bring in the technology! It can’t come soon enough.
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