What does Stuart Cummings do at the RFL?

[Mike]

Seriously though, in the last two seasons since fulltime refs, the director of referee's job in the offseason appears to have been coming up with ill-thought-out reinterpretations of rules that no-one has previously had an issue with, which then make a joke of the early part of the season followed by deep confusion and inconsistency throughout the year, and also to scrupulously avoid addressing difficult issues with rules that constantly give cause for concern where clarification would greatly benefit the game.

I am of course referring to "obstruction" and the "ball stealing" shambles.

I guess the refs feel the need to come up with something in the offseason to justify their new salaries, but do not have either the balls or the intelligence to identify and deal with the most pressing and most difficult refereeing issues.

If I was doing the evaluations of the performance of the director of referees for this last season I think disaplinary action would be in order for the mess caused at the start of the year.

All this is nothing to do with on the field performance, which I think is a serparate issue - interpretation of the rules and consistency between games is a management issue and there have been major failings this last year.

[robjoenz]

The way it happens, Mike, is that the clubs all meet with Stuart Cummings and tell him what they want to see clamped down on. This happens preseason. Then Cummings' holds a confernce for the referees and informs them of all the new initiatives. Then the season begins and everyone realises that these initiatives are stupid. Clubs, fans and referees alike all think it's rediculous and revert back to how it was previously. Don't forget who pays Cummings wages; it's the clubs, he can't just come up with rediculous ideas himself, he's under pressure to do as they want him to.

[robjoenz]

butt monkey posted:

robjoenz posted:
Paranoia!!!!!

What have Black Sabbath got to do with this? :doz:

Nothing.

[cpwigan]

I liked John Holdsworth. Strong referee. When Wigan had a team using niggling/spoling tactics they brought in Holdsworth. He sorted out some difficult Wigan v Warrington matches.

McCallum was good. Cummings is poor by comparison.

[robjoenz]

God posted:
How can Lancaster077 be paranoid when Brian Noble has been on the T.V saying that hes going to speak to Stuart Cummings on the high penalty count against his side.Is Brian Noble paranoid as well as 80% of Wigan fans

The reffing this year from certain officials have been nothing short of disgusting.

Is there only me that has noticed Wigan's discipline was shocking for a large part of the season?

Didn't Wigan go about 5 or 6 consecutive games getting a man sin-binned?

I don't know whether it's because I watch more Wigan games than any other but I've not seen any other club conceed so many penalties for backchat.

[cpwigan]

Although if you are refereed by say Ganson far more than other teams you will get penalised more heavily for dissent. I think the only way to compare discipline is to distribute referees equally across a season.

[robjoenz]

cpwigan posted:
Although if you are refereed by say Ganson far more than other teams you will get penalised more heavily for dissent. I think the only way to compare discipline is to distribute referees equally across a season.

Stop making excuses... it wasn't just Ganson that Wigan were backchatting. Discipline was shocking.

[Mike]

robjoenz posted:
The way it happens, Mike, is that the clubs all meet with Stuart Cummings and tell him what they want to see clamped down on. This happens preseason. Then Cummings' holds a confernce for the referees and informs them of all the new initiatives. Then the season begins and everyone realises that these initiatives are stupid. Clubs, fans and referees alike all think it's rediculous and revert back to how it was previously. Don't forget who pays Cummings wages; it's the clubs, he can't just come up with rediculous ideas himself, he's under pressure to do as they want him to.

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 a this stage that obvious problems will be revealed, so it can't have happened last season. Memos etc are simply not sufficient.

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.

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.

[butt monkey]

robjoenz posted:

cpwigan posted:
Although if you are refereed by say Ganson far more than other teams you will get penalised more heavily for dissent. I think the only way to compare discipline is to distribute referees equally across a season.

Stop making excuses... it wasn't just Ganson that Wigan were backchatting. Discipline was shocking.

I once argued this point with you, teams don't concede penalties - referees award them. There IS a subtle difference. It all depends on the referees interpretation at that point in the game.

[ancientnloyal]

He was in touch though, being fair to South Africa here