Match Official Crisis

[TrueBlueWarrior]

Watch it back then let me know what you think!

I can't do it to myself! Especially only for the sake of finding fault in match officials.

.....and that's exactly what you would do!! He made some simple, fundamental errors that a SL referee should not make. He was bad for both teams but in my opinion his errors were more costly to us!!

Therefore in summary I think the thread of the title is bang on, the refs are getting worse not better and that is a crisis!!

[Mike]

I don't think they are.

I think you think they are. But does that make it true. It makes it true for you that for sure.

They're roughly the same as they always are.

A question for the ref haters. Realistically, do you think a ref could make every call in the way that you agreed with? If they did, what would the opposition fans think of that performance?

[Mike]

Is it fair to say that refs haver been getting worse every year for decades? Because thats what I've heard from people who are very well informed every season for the last however many seasons. Surely most decisions should be totally wrong by now if standards have declined even by a few percent a year for all that time? Maybe they are just worse at the crucial decisions or something?

Refereeing is an incredibly tough job. Far tougher than a players or a coaches in terms of numbers of decisions per match and you have no one on your side. You make 98 correct decisions and are only remembered for the 2 you got wrong. And even those 2 were only wrong as far as 50% of the fans were concerned. God forbid you get 1 out of 500 actually provably wrong - you'd get dropped.

The sport relies on these people. They take so much stick for very little reward. Frankly I've never seen any realistic evidence of any clear bias, they are doing their best and being slagged off for doing it by everyone, usually for opposite reasons. Why do they do it? I don't know. I wouldn't and frankly no players seem to do if once retired either.


Don't get me wrong, a bad decision pisses me off as much as anyone else, I understand that. But it's almost as annoying after every loss to read post after post slagging off the officials. Fine, they do affect the outcome of some games, but not all of them. It's getting too much on here.

[markill]

Watch it back then let me know what you think!

I can't do it to myself! Especially only for the sake of finding fault in match officials.

.....and that's exactly what you would do!! He made some simple, fundamental errors that a SL referee should not make. He was bad for both teams but in my opinion his errors were more costly to us!!

Therefore in summary I think the thread of the title is bang on, the refs are getting worse not better and that is a crisis!!

If you want to give me some time stamped 'for instance's then I'm happy to go find and watch them.
I generally find though that when I see decisions back either on the screen or at home I'm less critical of them than I was live. But I'm a very passionate fan in the heat of the game. I've taught myself to get less caught up in it afterwards as I've got older.

For what it's worth, I'm in Mike's camp. I think the standards are roughly the same as they were when I started watching the sport more regularly and attentively 16 years ago. One big difference is the scrutiny has significantly increased. And probably will continue to do so for a while yet. But very few games are decided by the officials and I don't think Friday's was one of them.

[markill]

Is it fair to say that refs haver been getting worse every year for decades? Because thats what I've heard from people who are very well informed every season for the last however many seasons. Surely most decisions should be totally wrong by now if standards have declined even by a few percent a year for all that time? Maybe they are just worse at the crucial decisions or something?

Refereeing is an incredibly tough job. Far tougher than a players or a coaches in terms of numbers of decisions per match and you have no one on your side. You make 98 correct decisions and are only remembered for the 2 you got wrong. And even those 2 were only wrong as far as 50% of the fans were concerned. God forbid you get 1 out of 500 actually provably wrong - you'd get dropped.

The sport relies on these people. They take so much stick for very little reward. Frankly I've never seen any realistic evidence of any clear bias, they are doing their best and being slagged off for doing it by everyone, usually for opposite reasons. Why do they do it? I don't know. I wouldn't and frankly no players seem to do if once retired either.


Don't get me wrong, a bad decision pisses me off as much as anyone else, I understand that. But it's almost as annoying after every loss to read post after post slagging off the officials. Fine, they do affect the outcome of some games, but not all of them. It's getting too much on here.

I wouldn't single out posters on here Mike. We get as many comments about refs sent to the podcast as we do about all the players on the pitch put together.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes there are bad performances. But I'd say there are more bad performances each week by players than each season by refs. We just hold them to a different standard. Which is remarkable when most of us would do anything to be a player but would never be a ref. I know I couldn't do either job!

[Owd Codger]

IMO officiating has gone backwards under Ganson.

How can you say that when it is no different now than what it was under his predecessors, Sharpe and Cummings.

In fact, it has never been any good since the Australian Greg McCallum was in charge!

[josie andrews]

IMO officiating has gone backwards under Ganson.

How can you say that when it is no different now than what it was under his predecessors, Sharpe and Cummings.

In fact, it has never been any good since the Australian Greg McCallum was in charge!

Don't you mean since he left? They didn't seem to be as noticeable in games then.

[SJ]

Is it fair to say that refs haver been getting worse every year for decades? Because thats what I've heard from people who are very well informed every season for the last however many seasons. Surely most decisions should be totally wrong by now if standards have declined even by a few percent a year for all that time? Maybe they are just worse at the crucial decisions or something?

Refereeing is an incredibly tough job. Far tougher than a players or a coaches in terms of numbers of decisions per match and you have no one on your side. You make 98 correct decisions and are only remembered for the 2 you got wrong. And even those 2 were only wrong as far as 50% of the fans were concerned. God forbid you get 1 out of 500 actually provably wrong - you'd get dropped.

The sport relies on these people. They take so much stick for very little reward. Frankly I've never seen any realistic evidence of any clear bias, they are doing their best and being slagged off for doing it by everyone, usually for opposite reasons. Why do they do it? I don't know. I wouldn't and frankly no players seem to do if once retired either.


Don't get me wrong, a bad decision pisses me off as much as anyone else, I understand that. But it's almost as annoying after every loss to read post after post slagging off the officials. Fine, they do affect the outcome of some games, but not all of them. It's getting too much on here.

In the cold light of day I accept Mike's assessment above

[TrueBlueWarrior]

I don't think they are.

I think you think they are. But does that make it true. It makes it true for you that for sure.

They're roughly the same as they always are.

A question for the ref haters. Realistically, do you think a ref could make every call in the way that you agreed with? If they did, what would the opposition fans think of that performance?

I think they are.

I think you don't think they are. But that does not make it true. It makes it true for you that's for sure.

They're roughly the same as they always are, in your opinion.

A question for the ref defenders. Realistically do you think a referee should make at least 9-10 fundamental errors during a game that actually question his knowledge of the rules? If they are what are they getting paid a lot of money for, because on any other profession you would be sacked!

As for it being harder than ever due to scrutiny, is it really? 2 Touch judges to help, numerous cameras you can refer to at any time during the game to help with a decision, rightly or wrongly!! Video ref to help with tries and more when required and they still get it wrong!

Are they not full time? What do they actually do 'all week' to improve? How can Hicks be one of the top refs in this country, he is inept!!

This is not about Hicks v Wigan, it's simply about how bad of an official he is, why is he refereeing in SL? Surely there are better out there or is it jobs for the boys?

[Owd Codger]

Possibly the speeding up of the game involving far fitter players now may have something to do with the lowering of standards as the same thing is also now happening in Football.

A reason why the NRL have introduced two Referees?