2021 Season

cowboyman said:
What a load of bollocks, they are full time professionals and well paid.

Players have to stand up and face the fire when they under perform and cop all kinds of abuse online as well.

They need to be held accountable and be asked questions after the game like coaches and players. Instead we get the weekly apology from their boss that they got a clear and obvious decision wrong. There is no accountability on the night from any of them and we wonder why there has been no signs of improvement by the same usual suspects.
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Do you see how often they are changing the rules? Look at the rock show of Magic round compared to lately. They would be under a new instruction/focus every week. Let the ref, ref the game. No, bunker, no reviews.
 
Let the coaches say what they want about the refs and that sets a standard. Watch as ref abuse becomes more common in lower grades, junior grades, school games … and these are amateurs giving up their time to referee from their own good will.

I think match officials deserve our respect, they do a great job 95% of the time.
 
jamesgould said:
Let the coaches say what they want about the refs and that sets a standard. Watch as ref abuse becomes more common in lower grades, junior grades, school games … and these are amateurs giving up their time to referee from their own good will.

I think match officials deserve our respect, they do a great job 95% of the time.
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Yep well said. The NRL has made their job so difficult, I really feel sorry for them. They spend so much time fluffing about inclusion and being so political correct about everything. They forget the refs, give them an appreciation round week and educate the public what they do. Would love to see a head cam on them for a week, put the quick calls in real time in a highlights package and show people.
 
Referees will continue to be criticised due to modern technology. When we watched games in the 70-80’s we didn’t have the constant replays, the slow motion, or the current severe rules of head highs, crushers or off the ball infringements. Any incident, try scored, try just missed, penalty, injury, dropped ball, kick out on full, any tackle, legal or not causing stoppage is replayed over and over at slow motion from many angles and the referees and linesman know it and they are criticised for not seeing or adjudicating on it so in comes the BUNKER. A bloke sitting remotely making judgements on anything that ref’s and linesman saw or missed, refs and linesmen make mistakes that the Bunker overrules but who over rules the Bunker. We have made many changes, two refs etc but no improvements.
Maybe we go back to a ref with linesmen, no replays of incidents by TV and a review afterwards of the officials and players performances to consider fines, suspensions and referee appointments.
I know, won’t happen, just me ranting
 
packo said:
Do you see how often they are changing the rules? Look at the rock show of Magic round compared to lately. They would be under a new instruction/focus every week. Let the ref, ref the game. No, bunker, no reviews.
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That’s for the refs to go to their boss to get clarity like any other person does at their job if they don’t fully know a task.

Won’t hear any complaints from me regarding the no bunker/reviews.
 
So is every ref hopeless, or is it the system that's broken. It's in a ridiculous state of affairs. Rugby league should be about the players & the one ref on the field. Everything else has complicated it in a bid for perfection. That's why every week seems like a farce.
 
There's been so many rules added to what used to be a simple game ... plus they now have to bark out instructions every tackle about when to get up, when players can move in the defensive line, calling out players who are offside ...

Then every decision they make they get players running up to them arguing and they have to explain basic rules to them endlessly ... and now there's captain's challenges thrown into the mix (the majority of which have failed from what I've seen this year) ... touch judges and bunker communicating with them ...

Seriously five minutes of it and I'd throw in the towel and go back to the changing rooms to have a cry, I think! I'm actually amazed we've never seen one have a breakdown, coz it stresses me out just watching what they have to deal with.
 
You have answered much of the problem James. The refs are not coaches and should not be expected to tell the players how to play, when to release, who is offside etc etc. Just use the whistle. Best ref in my experience is still the Reverend Father Noel Sphor. He could handle hard heads like Noel Gibson, also the Wests winger that went to the chooks and some of the forwards in his day were hard heads, Rex Elvin, John Sattler, Pogo Morgan, Bag Owens, Ducky Williams the list goes on but Noel handled 'em all no trouble.
 
jamesgould said:
Let the coaches say what they want about the refs and that sets a standard. Watch as ref abuse becomes more common in lower grades, junior grades, school games … and these are amateurs giving up their time to referee from their own good will.

I think match officials deserve our respect, they do a great job 95% of the time.
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I should clarify that by no means in my comments was I saying I condone abuse of referees or abuse of anybody.

It just seems unfair to me on everyone else involved that the players and coaches have to face extreme scrutiny from the media week after week, and yet the referees walk on untouched.

We've seen countless times the referee has ruined a fantastic contest with a mistake, see the 2018 grand final for an example.
Yes it's a mistake, but the referee should then at least be able to step up and take some accountability for it. Instead Graham Annesley comes out with his weekly "yep, we got it wrong", and nothing more comes of it other than the referee being stood down for a week on rare incidences.
Abuse is absolutely intolerable, accountability should be an absolute expectation.
 
Patty said:
I should clarify that by no means in my comments was I saying I condone abuse of referees or abuse of anybody.

It just seems unfair to me on everyone else involved that the players and coaches have to face extreme scrutiny from the media week after week, and yet the referees walk on untouched.

We've seen countless times the referee has ruined a fantastic contest with a mistake, see the 2018 grand final for an example.
Yes it's a mistake, but the referee should then at least be able to step up and take some accountability for it. Instead Graham Annesley comes out with his weekly "yep, we got it wrong", and nothing more comes of it other than the referee being stood down for a week on rare incidences.
Abuse is absolutely intolerable, accountability should be an absolute expectation.
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The refs are already under enormous pressure! If they make a mistake it’s analysed and scandalised way more than any player or coaching error is.

And I don’t know what the refs could say other than what Annesley already did says: “We got that one wrong”
 
jamesgould said:
The refs are already under enormous pressure! If they make a mistake it’s analysed and scandalised way more than any player or coaching error is.

And I don’t know what the refs could say other than what Annesley already did says: “We got that one wrong”
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I'm talking actual accountability. How often are referees punished for making errors?

They are meant to have extensive knowledge of the game's rules, so why so many incorrect decisions?

Maybe its more of a case of the system failing than the referees, but either way they need to be held to account.
 
Sharks hooker choices,
They had Reece Robson, Jayden Brailey and Blake Brailey.

They chose to keep Blake who seems to be the 3rd choice of the 3 IMO.

I'm definitely not complaining I love Jayden here, just seems odd.
 
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Fo0r mine krusty at the time the sharks made their decision Blake looked the better prospect of the two brothers, however undoubedly Jayden has improved out of sight.
 
Robson is the best out of the 3 but you wouldn’t say the Sharks ditched him for either of the brothers. Dragons poached him and then the Cowboys poached him from them.
 
cowboyman said:
Robson is the best out of the 3 but you wouldn’t say the Sharks ditched him for either of the brothers. Dragons poached him and then the Cowboys poached him from them.
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Potential ceiling of Robson is slightly higher, but on current ability Jayden Brailey is the best of the three.
 
Patty said:
Potential ceiling of Robson is slightly higher, but on current ability Jayden Brailey is the best of the three.
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He is also 2 years older than Robson. Robson in 2 years time and hopefully in a decent Cowboys side by then is pushing on the door to take the number 9 role in origin.
 
Just commenting on the ref situation discussed earlier.

The media has driven us to where we are today with their constant scrutiny of everything. BITD you would complaint about a refs call but not blame them for the loss. Talking before video refs came in.

Then, the media started srutinzing everything to a minute degree. Technology improved and the commentators, media, started nit picking everything to the point they started constant calls for the video ref technology to be brought in saying if we have the technology we should use it to improve decision consistency. Who can say that has happened?

Nowadays every decision is questioned and analysed, in many cases more than the highlights of the games themselves. Refs are under immense pressure and made examples of if they get a call wrong.

As well as touch judges and bunker in their ear, I believe they also have a refs coach talking to them as well throughout the game.

Players who run up to the ref to remonstrate with them need to be told to go away. The superleague used to do this, not sure now though. Coaches need to be told that any public criticism of the refs performance will be fined. Questions the coaches have need to be sent through proper channels, not the media. And above all else, the media, commentators need to stop replaying every incident and debating whether the ref stuffed up or not, it is taking focus away from what a great game RL is, and making the focus on negative issues.
 
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