Sorry, Mike... that one got lost on the page cross-over.
Mike posted:
If requests from coaches is what caused the mess last season - and everyone is happy that that should be the driving factor in rule changes, then I would suggest that the problem lies in the processes in place to make these changes. It was a ridiculous and highly embaressing start to the season. What is required is the director of referees to trawl through footage of games finding examples of where any new rule interpretation should be applied and an equal number where it shouldn't. These videos should be used as part of the referee training program - which I'm sure happens already, although you can't tell based on the consistency of the onfield descisions - but it is crucial that the coaches are invited to a review session where they are shown the video and told what the new interpretation is going to be. Its at this stage that obvious problems will be revealed, so it can't have happened last season. Memos etc are simply not sufficient.
The match officials department have this awesome database (I think it's compiled by Opta) whereby they can filter of list of incidents, whether they be tries, penalties for high shots, knock-ons, offside penalties, etc. They use these for training purposes.
I can't remember whether it's the coaches or the chairmen who meet to agree rule changes. I have a feeling it may be the chairmen because they are the people who run the clubs. It would make more sense to speak to the coaches, I suppose the good chairmen consult their coaches.
I don't see any major issues with consistency. There is always room for improvement but the only way to get complete consistency is to operate zero tolerance but that would destroy the game.
I would like to see every decision (including non-decision) in every SL match being reviewed and critiqued by all of the referees after each round. These reviews should be performed in an atmosphere of no-fault - i.e. without any implication of performance evaluation. Things to highlight should be consistency of decision making between officials in different games and consistency of the interpretation. The goal is for all official to get used to a consistent ruling for all descisions. On top of this, each week the director should choose a specific ruling produce a video review of recent decisions, consistent and inconsistent, for the panel to also discuss.
From international level right down to academy & summer conference rugby the referee is given a DVD of the game. Different referees review their games in different ways. I asked one fulltimer for advice on how to review games, he suggested sitting at the computer watching the DVD with an excel file open; the minute in column 1 and comments in column 2. The comments may positive, something a different angle might have made you do different or something that could have been picked up on that wasn't. From several match reviews you come up with your strengths and areas for improvements. From that you aim to improve over subsequent games.
Rob: I hope you are going to tell me that all of this is already done. If it is, I hope that we will start to see the benefits shortly, because it ain't happening yet. You only have to look at american sports to see what standard of refereeing is possible.
I can't say I really know an awful lot about American sports. From what I've seen of American Football there don't seem to be many rules to implement (the amount of obstruction and forward passes!) and baseball looks pretty straight forward. Could it be that our game has a lot more grey areas and areas that require referee interpretation?