The 2024 NRL season hasn’t even started, and yet the major topic of conversation, already, is refereeing.
Last weekend’s World Club Challenge was a great game, the proper hard-fought, high-stakes football that we all want to see, and yet we leave it discussing the officiating.
Yes, it was poor, and there’s no doubt about it. It was cruel on the Panthers and generous to Wigan, but the hyperbole that has continued since has overshadowed what was one of the best World Club Challenge fixtures ever.
On the radio, Greg Alexander called it “the worst video referee decision I’ve ever seen” and on social media, Jamie Soward said it was “absolutely rubbish” and the “worst call of 2024”.
They might be right. It was a horrendous call and it might end up being the worst of 2024, though given the constant discourse over officiating standards, it won’t be the last time we hear something describing as the blunder of the year.
Graham Annesley, the NRL’s reffing boss, said that the process was perhaps wrong, though a better way of putting it might be that the process is different, as the game was played under the Super League interpretations.
The truth is that it wasn’t even the worst video referee call of the weekend – go look up Fa’amanu Brown’s send off for Hull FC against Warrington – and we see bad calls in rugby league all the time as we do in all sports all the time.
It’s cliché to mention that refs are human and that their task is hard, but it’s so well-trodden because it’s true.
Reffing is incredibly hard, every inch of it is scrutinised all the time and it is the lowest hanging fruit of discourse for all concerned.
The reason it sells so well is that decisions, largely, are polarising, and polarising subjects are great for TV, media and pub discussions.
Everyone is a fan, everyone has an opinion and a significant portion of people have money on one outcome or the other, meaning we can all wallow in the rights, wrongs and wherefores of it.
Officiating eliminates nuance like no other subject. For a transfer, for example, we can discuss speculatively whether it is good, bad or indifferent, and we can have lengthy debates about rep selections, tactics, performances and anything else you might consider.
Not refs. They’re right or they’re wrong. It’s treated as black and white. Yet, like most things in rugby league, it isn’t.
Refs are also the most noticed when they make mistakes. We have another cliché here – the best ref is the one you don’t notice – and again, it’s largely correct.
Speaking recently on the excellent House of League podcast, former Super League ref Rob Hicks, who now heads up the Rugby Football League’s legal department, explained this issue through the prism of how many tackles took place in the opening round of the UK comp, which was in the region of 3,600, to result in three high tackle send-offs.
His point was that the vast majority of successful, well-policed actions garnered no interest but were essential to the running of the game.
One might suggest that first tackle hit-ups aren’t as interesting as last minute winners, or cite the old journalistic adage that man bites dog is a lot more newsworthy than dog bites man, but it’s a fair point rarely made nonetheless, because while refereeing is fair game for discussion, it probably isn’t fair game for the level of discussion it gets proportionately to how much influence it has in results.
Less covered, especially in Australia, was that Penrith could have twice taken the lead in the second half but bombed superb opportunities, for example, or that Wigan managed to ice their limited visits to Panthers territory with both daring and execution.
WIGAN, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 24: Jake Wardle of Wigan Warriors goes down before going over to score his team’s third try during the Betfred World Club Challenge match between Wigan Warriors and Penrith Panthers at DW Stadium on February 24, 2024 in Wigan, England. (Photo by Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
Full disclosure: this journalist was a referee in the juniors for several years in the UK, partly because of a love of the game but mostly because it paid better than stacking supermarket shelves. It’s likely that there is a slight bias there.
But also, in many years of covering this sport and others, it’s difficult to think of too many games in which the officiating concretely changed a result.
Joel Wilson’s shocking decision might have shifted that famous Ashes Test at Headingley in 2019, but so could Nathan Lyon taking the bails when given the chance, or Australia not burning all their reviews.
Diego Maradona’s handball in 1986 is possibly the most egregious clanger in the history of soccer, but the game finished 2-1 and still required the Argentine genius to score one of the greatest goals in history to win.
Certainly, players and coaches very seldomly choose to blame officiating.
“It wasn’t what lost us the game” is uttered far more often in press conferences than any fire up at the Bunker or on-field officials.
They do so because they know it’s not worth the hassle to do so publicly and have other ways of making their point in less obvious ways, but also because those responsible for results tend to take that responsibility. They know the hundred other factors at play.
That’s why a major wish for this year is that we try to put more nuance into the coverage of rugby league and less into the nuts and bolts of decisions. Yes, bad calls happen, but so do good ones, all the time, and we instantly forget them.
And, as a second wish, we can stop discussing any idea of consistency. It doesn’t exist in life, let alone in sports and less still in officiating.
We don’t expect kickers to boot every goal, or coaches to ace every interchange plan or recruitment departments to make every signing work – but every Tuesday night, we approach a legal process at the judiciary with the idea that it should be 12 Angry Men.
There’s a famous quote from boxing promoter Mickey Duff that, if you wanted a friend in the fight game, the best thing to do would be to get a dog.
If you’re looking for consistency in your life and you love rugby league, go get a kelpie. Everything else is a lot more nuanced – especially the refs. And that’s fine.
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Luciano Leilua walks on water. And he might again when his suspension ends.
blacktown leagues
Roar Rookie
Good call Duncan the honour system has worked in the backyard for decades
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Ennis out. Gus in.
Albo
Roar Rookie
But can we swap out Ennis for …….anyone else ? Even the missus can’t stand that continuous fake laugher ! :angry:
Dionysus
Roar Rookie
A lot of it has to do with the Ref having absolute authority.
Nick Maguire
Roar Rookie
TC, You're right! Sorry! I don't know what I was thinking when I posted that, I watched the video! The principle remains though. Thanks for correcting me.
Cugel
Roar Rookie
I can cut Gus a little slack, he is of my era. So we grew up knowing, for instance, if the ball carrier accidentally fell into a tackle and copped one in the mush, that was part of playing the game. Now, it's a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, followed weeks on the sideline. Such an enormous turnaround can be difficult to come to terms with.
Cugel
Roar Rookie
Stupid rules in, stupid decisions out.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
Not wanting to start a code war, but that assault occured during a game of Australian Rules football.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
That was the old system. It was unpopular because it led to the video ref making a call when they may have actually had a worse view than the on-field officials. And when it sometimes came back as "ref's call", every decision would be labeled a pure guess. Also, it reduced the authority of the on-field officials.
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
Agree with a lot of this, but I want to focus on consistency. The thing is, there are rules where consistency is absolutely not negotiable. How many players on the field, number of interchanges, being behind the 10m line at kick offs and drop outs, 2 points if the ball goes through the sticks and over the crossbar, all rules where the rulebook strictly states the rules and we all expect consistency from officials for these. In other areas such as delaying the play the ball, making a genuine attempt to play the ball with the foot etc, the rules are written that give the referee room for interpretation. They will not, and cannot be applied consistently. In other words, there is context to whether we should expect consistency with a given rule, and whether that is a good or bad thing.
Tony
Roar Guru
I always preferred to be in the water than on the sand
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
The guaranteed solution is do away with ref's and have the commentary team call the game and officiate from the bunker. So when the Tigers play the Roosters I think we would all love the video ref being signalled then Block, Braith and Mick Ennis talk through the nuances of the play as it applies to the specific law. And what a treat to have Cam Smith, Locky and Fatty in the commentary and the bunker for State of Origin. Regardless of everything else, we can be sure that Billy will be MOTM.
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Now's hardly the time to be debating the merits of sand traps. If you were any sort of golfer you'd just avoid them.
Tufanooo
Roar Rookie
If Gus was in charge of rugby league, the game would have been sued out of existence long ago. He knows this. It's why he declines to actually step up and join NRL admin.
Tufanooo
Roar Rookie
It doesn’t help that some refs do seem to have teams they give a harder time to than others (I’m sure you’ve all got your own ideas on which ones). Prove it, or withdraw it.
Tufanooo
Roar Rookie
Funny how just about everyone accepts when a players mistake is regarded as a turning point in a game but a refs error somehow doesn’t have the same effect. Imagine a player taking the tackle in a game instead of throwing the ball to an unmarked winger in a close game telling the coach that his mistake didn’t ”concretely change the result” . What rot. A referee makes a mistake in a game and they are under threat of being dropped the next week. That does not ever happen to a player. Lets look at the Roosters v Storm semi final last year. Each team made 10 errors. And on each team, some of those errors directly led to tries in the subsequent set of six. Do you want to know what happened to the Roosters players who made mistakes? Nothing. Unless injured, they all played the next week. You know what happened when Ashley Klein made a mistake? He got dropped and publicly slaughtered. Ben Hunt cost his team a premiership in 2015. There is zero doubt about that. Do you know what he received for making a catastrophic mistake? Support. Did Wayne Bennett say in a press conference "Hunt is useless, my whole system is useless and he needs to be punished."? No. He supported him. The press supported him. The fans supported him. People will accept that players can make mistakes that can turn a game, but they don't campaign for them to be dropped from the team next week. Why people insist referees (who earn 50-75% less than players) should be held to a higher standard and exposed to public criticism is just ridiculous. That's why you are very, very wrong.
Tufanooo
Roar Rookie
Definitely. Apparently the average law abiding person breaks the law 260-300 times per year, not including repeated traffic incidences such as speeding or accelerating to make a yellow light.
BigGordon
Roar Rookie
"The problem is there is so much misunderstanding from the main protagonists." em>That's the problem in a nutshell. These guys think they know the rules and think that their interpretation of what they think is the only one that can be correct. I'd reckon 75% of the hype and BS we hear about refs through a season would disappear if the Goulds and others like him, bothered to learn the rules and the right interpretations. They still might not agree, but at least they can see either why they made that call or acknowledge it was a call the refs were open to make.
Tony
Roar Guru
Finally, an end to the bunker