Video Refs

[Ipinwigan]

Just read an interesting article online from The Telegraph, about the rugby onion world cup final and the sending off incident.
Now I didn't watch it myself, can't stand the game, but the point the reporter makes is that the use of the video ref and the over analysis of the incident, was extremely detrimental to the game, as Saturday night TV entertainment, he says it was more like court reporting, the spectacle of the game itself was ruined by the incident.
He also goes on to say that VAR has ruined football.
Now my point is that this is also happening in our beloved sport, too many incidents being referred to the video ref, slowing the game down and still coming up with poor decisions.
This can only get worse next season when all games will have a video ref.
I have said for many years that we should not have video refs, as they are ruining the game, slowing the game down and taking away the try celebrations, because you are never sure if it will be referred to the video ref.
It's officiated by humans and there will always be errors, just accept it and get rid of the video ref before it kills the game.

[Wiganer Ted]

Like the OP I didn't see the sending off. Saw quite a bit of the match though.
It appeared the "bunker" were getting involved too much as if they were trying to justify their existence.
The Union people though are more upset with the match referee than the TMO folk. They know their rules whereas I don't but they are almost to a person saying he bent over backwards to favour South Africa.

As for our VR. When it was introduced they did an analysis and found that errors on try scoring decisions went from an accuracy level of 66% to 93%. Maybe not to the %point but very much in that area. The one thing a referee must fear is not going to the VR when it's available then making a wrong decision on a try. As for me I'm biased. As a Wigan fan I want all our tries awarded immediately but the opposition's to be looked at in great detail with a view to disallowing them .

Much is said about the time taken by the VR. That doesn't bother me. I live 30 miles from the DW so for an 8pm ko I leave home at 6.45pm. If I don't go to the bar afterwards I'm home for around 10.30pm - 10.45pm. A round trip of about four hours. If the VR adds 4-5 mins to the length of an 80 min game then to me it's neither here nor there.

We want the match officials to come with accurate decisions and the VR is a massive assist on that. Keep it I say.

[Jonathon Kerr (JK)]

The issue I have with the officials is consistency. If something is punishable in round 1, then it needs to be throughout the season.

With video refs at each game, I think we should be adopting the NRL model whereby every try is reviewed. I don’t want the video ref involved in every decision and would do away the sin bin referral and keep it just for red cards. The on field refs should be using the sin bin to there advantage and not be hesitant to use it.

[josie andrews]

The refs on the field should take more control on the field. Stop this I have a try/no try on the field so that the VR has to find reasons to allow or disallow a try. If the ref is unsure of anything he should ask the VR just check everything is okay as they used to. I’m sick of us altering our game to replicate the Aussies. We invented the game ffs!

[Ipinwigan]

I take on board the comments made, but I think there is already to much playacting by some players, to get the video ref involved in an incident and possibly award a penalty, or even get the ref to sinbin someone.
For me the video ref has had it's day, we just need to go with in goal judges, like all non video ref games and trust that more often than not the correct decision will be made.
Take for example the no try for Leigh in the last regular game, a very poor decision (other than it was against Leigh) both the ref and video ref made very bad calls. I am not saying it would have changed the outcome of the game, as I think Wigan would have upped their game to win, but it still was bad.
To me the involvement of the video ref is so frustrating, either live or on TV, just get rid of it.

[DaveO]

RL has got the video refs about right. The major complaint was they were not at every match but now they will be.

We do not see the farce that is VAR in RL. The decisions are relatively quick and overall mistakes are few.

As to RU, that game has a serious problem. They are scared witless of any head contact and the game itself has not evolved its rules given the size of fitness of professional players.

The scrum is a good example of this. They love their scrums but they are downright dangerous now and as a result you can as South Africa did v England, use them to milk penalties.

The NZ sending off can be viewed here:

https://wwos.nine.com.au/videos/rugby/r ... qwn6zfbr4v

If that was a sending off in League I think there would be some very unhappy fans and coaches. Note the video is in slow motion which makes it look worse anyway. They gave him a yellow card and then after review upgraded it to red. He was sent off because according to their laws "Dangerous tackling includes, but is not limited to, tackling or attempting to tackle an opponent above the line of the shoulders even if the tackle starts below the line of the shoulders.”

The referee has to go through a four-step process to determine the extent of the foul play and the sanction. The four steps are:

Has head contact occurred?
Was there any foul play?
What was the degree of danger?
Is there any mitigation?

The final step, (is there any mitigation?) determines whether the punishment can be reduced by one grade (i.e. red card down to yellow card or yellow card down to just a penalty). Mitigation includes a sudden or significant drop in height or change in direction from ball carrier, a late change in dynamics due to another player in the contact area, a clear effort from the tackler to reduce their height or the tackler having no time to adjust.

It was decided there was no mitigation.

So in RU what happens is the ref gives a yellow but crosses his arms to say go for a "bunker review" so the play carries on while the ref in the bunker has up to 8 minutes to decide if the offence is upgraded or downgraded. This a very much like VAR in football. I hope we never go down that route. The ref should decide on foul play and the bunker review system is asking the bunker ref to make a subjective judgement (unlike offside in the VAR in soccer).

[Ipinwigan]

I am still of the same opinion the video ref ruins the game.

Having now watched the union sending off, it is almost exactly the same as the Joe Shorrocks sending off in the Cup semi-final and that was a video ref decision, so to say "If that was a sending off in League I think there would be some very unhappy fans and coaches.", there were a lot of unhappy fans and I am sure Matt Peat wasn't happy either.

[moto748]

Well video refs aren't going to go away, whether we like it or not; that's the way the world is going. But of course, we don't want it going to the charade we saw in the RUWC. I've always taken the view (and I think this applies to both codes, although I don't care about Union too much), that red cards should be restricted to clear and obvious examples of dirty play.

[Southern Softy]

Actually, I think we may have got it right in RL.
TMO makes a bad game worse and a slow game slower in the boring union. VAR in football was introduced because referees on the pitch were making too many errors so who did they put in charge of VAR? The same refs who were responsible for it having to be brought in. Brilliant!

In RL it sorts out decisions if the ref's view is impeded for a try - is definitive as to whether someone is in touch or not and can flag up foul play which the ref is unsure of. Ben Thaler had a tendency to want to run the entire match but since we can now hear the Video Ref making his decisions, he has calmed down and it seems to work well.
What it hasn't done is to highlight how poor touch judges are in general. Getting more poor officials in as extras behind the posts doesn't seem to be the right way to go.

[Lazy J]

Fully agree, the VR system in RL is one of the few things we've got right. hearing the thought processes of the video ref shows the protocols work, they start every decision with "the on field decision was" and "its from a kick so we start with onside/offisde" the VR controls the situation, show me the angle from etc. To me this shows the structure of the decision, who's making it and why. compare that with the audio from the Liverpool game, its chaotic people talking and offering decisions.

The bit I don't like, is players staying down injured so the VR will look at the tackle. we need to find a way of controlling that.