Opinion
First and foremost, this article is about the running of the game. Not just the referees that dedicate their time to running around every weekend ensuring we have a game to play.
In May 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic. The NRL were keen on returning to the field before everyone else. However, the officials weren’t on board with a shock decision to return to a one referee model.
For the NRL, it made sense as it helped cap costs and produce consistency with less officials on the field and the same faces refereeing matches.
Instead, what it produced was chaos and a generation of future match officials were lost to the game. Due to the COVID bubble, the group of part-time officials that were touch judges were removed with little notice. The NRL instead had some officials juggle on short turnarounds doing multiple games a round which impacted the officiating standards.
Back at a development level, pathways became limited and blocked, so officials in the high performance squads in both NSW and QLD were caught at a crossroads with their career. Some chose to give it up all together, while some gave up an ambition to referee and ran the line as a touch judge.
The 2021 season saw part time officials return, after the COVID bubble saw their role almost become extinct. This brought more competition and made the officiating in the first half of the season better. As the full time officials were being challenged to keep their spots, and if they didn’t aim up.
Officials from the state leagues were ready to go at a moments notice. However, the second wave of the pandemic saw the competition move to Queensland and the pathway was blocked a second time as they were left out of the NRL’s plans yet again.
This saw the same full-time squad as 2020 (minus Henry Perenara who retired for health reasons) referee all the games through to the grand-final and bar some exceptions. These officials were safe from scrutiny, as simply they couldn’t be dropped or replaced.
Refs are crucial yet underappreciated (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
This angered the public, and rightly questions were asked about a lack of accountability. Every Monday saw the same company line from NRL head of football Graham Annesley that the officials “couldn’t be more accountable”.
However, when the appointments came out, there were rare cases of accountability and the NRL acted when they had simply no other choice.
Just as it is for players, fatigue and load management is important for match officials as they need to have 100% focus for 80 minutes, one mistake is catastrophic and could have a gigantic outcome of the match. Week in and week out, we see officials now juggling dual or in some cases three roles in a single match week.
For this, I’m going to use Kasey Badger as an example a few weeks ago. She officiated a NSW Cup match on a Thursday, before running an NRL line and then being in the bunker, all in the same weekend.
There is surely a question that has to be asked whether the officials that have multiple roles on a match weekend are as mentally sharp throughout the whole week.
The lack of development from the NRL into pathways for it’s referees raises a very serious concern for the future of the NRL refereeing squad and it’s one that Jared Maxwell has to plan sooner rather than later.
With a lack of opportunities to referee in the NRL. What will the governing body do when a rookie referee makes a big mistake in a big game.
Will they back them like they do with their senior officials in Gerard Sutton and Ashley Klein?
Or make them a scapegoat and hang them out to dry.
That concern was raised in the opening match of Round 11. Todd Smith, the rising star of the officiating world was given the blockbuster match between Melbourne and Brisbane. On the most part, Smith handled the match on the most part well.
However, he did make some wrong decisions. Instead of backing their new rising star, the NRL demoted him to running the line for the next two weeks.
You wouldn’t see Klein or Sutton running around with a flag each time they made a critical decision wrong, showcasing the inconsistent approach to the way officials are dealt with.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
There in lies the problem. Rookie officials are tared with the ultimate case of accountability. Every move they make is closely watched and examined; every decision has to be explained.
It’s little wonder why officiating numbers are getting lower, with the abuse that they cop on a weekly basis in juniors, to being one of a few to make it into the relevant junior representative squads. From there, the numbers of being graded are again quite small.
In the last two years, there have been a limited number of debutants that have gotten their chance in the NRL arena. Even then, they are lucky to get to officiate in 10 NRL games a year, while those on full-time contracts get to run around with limited accountability for the role that they provide.
What hope do I hold for the NRL officiating crew moving forward.
Well, a lot in fact. There are many talented up and comers that we have only seen referee in the trials. I look at officials like Kasey Badger, Darian Furner, Wyatt Raymond and Belinda Sharpe and I can see the next generation striving to prove themselves in the second-tier competition.
These four along with Smith, Liam Kennedy and Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski (who’ve refereed in the middle across 2022-23) present the future of the NRL officials.
It’s time the NRL start to give these guys that chance to shine as they are the future whistle-blowers that can lead the way when the current crop of Sutton, Klein, Atkins and Gee eventually run out of steam.
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