The refs are human

[Quidgybo]

There are very few cases where they should be unable to make a decision that is correct.

But correct in whose opinion? Yours? The television commentary team? Most decisions that go to the video go there precisely because they are very close. Close enough that two people looking at the same footage in isolation could come up with two completely different rulings (or at least one person in isolation and one person being guided by the enthusiastic opinion of a television commentator). What one person thinks is close but clear cut another person might call close with some doubt meaning the benefit of the doubt rule mandates a different decision. Doubt in close calls is just a personal opinion and therefore subject to human error just like any other decision.

Leigh.

 

[Quidgybo]

You dont think 80 min of work, for 26 weeks a year for 150k is massive money? Forget the fitness, thats there responsibility so they can have this job.

Forget the fitness? Nice one. So practising running backwards a consitent ten metres for eighty minutes is just fitness work? Practising detecting a forward pass at a head on angle is just fitness work? Practising keep a running tackle count while accurately calling offside, high tackles, stripping the ball, knockons is just fitness work? What about the hours reviewing match videos to correct mistakes or identify coached techniques for cheating? What about the weekend work and travel. What about the responsibility for handling events that generate and risk millions dollars? Is none of this worth anything?

When we describe referees or players as full time, it's not just a fancy title. It means FULL TIME. 37.5 hours or whatever per week, 52 weeks per year minus holidays. Match day is only the very public culmination of that work.

This attitude of "there only human" doesnt cut it in the real world, so why are they working with different rules to the rest of us?

As has already been pointed out to you, it does cut it in the real world - in all professions. For you, for me, for every single one of us.

I understand people make mistakes, but these constant blunders cost teams and sponsers thousands of dollars every week, and Nobody is allowed to even critise them!

Rubbish. We're critcising them here (some of us rationally, others less so). Coaches and other paid employees working in the NRL can criticise them too. There is a formal , *private* complaints procedure available. What isn't permitted is paid employees working within the NRL competition airing their complaints in public. No employer stands for that.

Leigh.

 

[Coaster]

Forget the fitness? Nice one. So practising running backwards a consitent ten metres for eighty minutes is just fitness work? Practising detecting a forward pass at a head on angle is just fitness work? Practising keep a running tackle count while accurately calling offside, high tackles, stripping the ball, knockons is just fitness work?

Leigh.

When did i say there skill training was just fitness? I was responding to

Referees are on the paddock 80 minutes and would have to be very fit.

The skill training they do for there job, may be very intensive, but thats there job! And they dont get paid for hard work they get paid for officiating the game.

Players dont get paid for hard work either, they get paid for there skills and there ability to think and act under pressure, and if a player cant do those things well, he gets dropped, and his salary drops also.

As has already been pointed out to you, it does cut it in the real world - in all professions. For you, for me, for every single one of us.

Rubbish! I have owned and ran a buisness since i was 18yrd, and the reality is that if you make to many mistakes, you are gone! When you start dealing in hundreds of thousands of dollars there is no room for mistakes, do they happen, sure, but there are penelties for doing so.

Every single one of us. Whether it be a white collar worker sending an email to the wrong person, a mechanic over tighening a nut, or a stay at home parent burning dinner

Thats trivial, it doesnt have anything to do with what we are talking about.
I was under the impression that we were speaking about a full time employee, that does 38 hours a week training, so to correct that quote you should have reffered to a 'full time chef burning a dinner, and a professional nut tightener' not being compentant in there job. How many times a week do you think that chef could burn a meal without concenquence?

 

[Quidgybo]

Rubbish! I have owned and ran a buisness since i was 18yrd, and the reality is that if you make to many mistakes, you are gone! When you start dealing in hundreds of thousands of dollars there is no room for mistakes, do they happen, sure, but there are penelties for doing so.

Not always. Mistakes resulting from incompetence or negligence usually do. But as we've already agreed, no one is prefect. Even once you eliminate all the mistakes thru incompetence of negligence, mistakes will still be made. It's part of having a human being involved. You can't prevent them or avoid them, you can only try to be prepared and mitigate their effect. Depending on the nature of the job, you might not be able to be able to find a human being on the planet who can perform it and not make a continual string of mistakes. In that case you either change the job or you live with the mistakes. In terms of RL I would suggest there is not a single human being on the planet able to live up to the refereeing standard you are calling for. And if there is, she's probably in a rice paddock somewhere in china totally unaware we need her.

Thats trivial, it doesnt have anything to do with what we are talking about. I was under the impression that we were speaking about a full time employee, that does 38 hours a week training, so to correct that quote you should have reffered to a 'full time chef burning a dinner, and a professional nut tightener' not being compentant in there job. How many times a week do you think that chef could burn a meal without concenquence?

But cooking dinner is only one part of the *full time* job that is stay at home parenting. And if you screw that up this week what's the long term consequence? If next week you forget to take a bottle in the pram when you go shopping what's the long term consequence? If the week after that you lose junior's teddy bear on the way home from the doctor's suggery what's the long term consequence? All trivial things, but none the less a string of mistakes in a full time job which do not result in the end the world. *All* jobs have a ton of aspects that are easy to get wrong but have no real consequence which is the point I was making to you. Every job has room to constantly make mistakes. Sometimes it's the same mistake over and over, sometimes it's a different one.

Even doctors make mistakes. They prescribe one treatment, it doesn't work, so they change it. In most scenarios there is no consequence of what could be classified as a mistake. But sometimes there is - the patient is dead. But like a referee, a doctor can only call it as he sees it at the time. Based on the symptoms in front of him he makes a decision on treatment. In a critical real time situation there isn't time for him to hang about and second guess himself, he just has to get on with it. And if he gets it wrong that doesn't necessarily mean he's incompetent or negligent, it just means as a human being he made the best call he could based on what he saw at the time. If he had more time, more help, more information perhaps the decision would have better. Too late, life goes on. Welcome to the human race.

Leigh.

 

[Mr Saab]

Quidg..

You are wasting your time.
Some people want perfection or close to it for the refs in league.
More chance of winning powerball

 

[Quidgybo]

Quidg..

You are wasting your time.

Yeah I know. Just call me St Jude.

Leigh.

 

[badav]

First things first. In the context of professional sport (that is, a full time commitment) 150k is not massive money. Especially when you consider the sh*t that they cop from the media, players, and coahes.

The simple fact is (and this is %100 true) is that we will never get perfection out of referees unless we can replace them with perfect machines. Why is it so hard for people to accept this?? I dont believe it is possible for a human eye to get correct every decision when sports are as fast as they are today.

When your out there playing a team sport you need to be able to accept that some 'line ball' calls go your way and others dont. and if your the better team on the day theres only a very tiny chance an incompetant ref will cost you a game.

i think you'll find that more often than not the referee is used a scapegoat to cover up the fact that the team that lost was not the better team on the day. its one way of coaches to shift the pressure of themselves onto others.

 

[Frustrated Fan]

But correct in whose opinion? Yours? The television commentary team? Most decisions that go to the video go there precisely because they are very close. Close enough that two people looking at the same footage in isolation could come up with two completely different rulings (or at least one person in isolation and one person being guided by the enthusiastic opinion of a television commentator). What one person thinks is close but clear cut another person might call close with some doubt meaning the benefit of the doubt rule mandates a different decision. Doubt in close calls is just a personal opinion and therefore subject to human error just like any other decision.

Leigh.

I can see from earlier posts within this thread that you are in favour of tweaking proceedures to help referees to ajudicate correctly. So am i and your post has inspired me to suggest what i think is a great fix for the video ref' problem.

I can imagine the preasure the video referee must be under. He has multiple things to consider in a very short time and then he needs to make sure he hits the correct button.
I understand the NRL trialled having an observer in the box with him to help him go through the processes (not sure if this is continueing).

I would like there to be a panel of three (3) video referees in the box, who can openly confer with each other, come to individual decisions with the majority rule to apply. The conference process needn't take long. I believe it will favour a quicker decision.

Take TV commentary as an example. We hear the comentators confering every time a call goes to the video ref. We often hear a commentator change his opinion after being corrected by his colleagues and they reach a unanimous decision well & truly before the video ref pushes the button. Sometimes they agree to disagree. If two v refs think its a try even after the third has explained to them why he thinks it is not.....TRY (majority rules).

Don't take the commentator example too seriously. Referees don't have the responibility of broadcasting/entertaining to the masses and they have their own diciplines. They will probably still get the odd call wrong but they will most certainly get more right. Mayby some of the new sponsorship money can go towards funding this proposal.

 

[Frustrated Fan]

Bless the referees. They are an integral part of our game. The way I see it, the game is nominal by nature (I think all sports are). Generally results are nominal. Especially in the NRL which, I believe, has become too fast and technical for the referees using the current processes. They certainly can not be expected to be 100% correct 100% of the time.
What concerns me though is how some o the contentious calls we have seen in the NRL are so bad it beggers belief. It makes me wonder: Are they fair dinkum? Do they have another agenda? Are they on the punt?

THE NRL yesterday defended its decision to jump into bed with Australia's largest sports bookmaker, claiming a new multi-million dollar sponsorship agreement would improve the integrity of wagering on the code.
The new three-year deal with TAB Sportsbet will not only earn the NRL a cut of the estimated $140 million wagered on rugby league each season, it will aid in its efforts to prevent players and officials betting on games.
Several AFL players were recently fined for betting on games, highlighting the potential for match-fixing.
Tabcorp chief executive Elmer Funke Kupper said his organisation had a duty to report to Gallop any league stars betting on the sport.
"We believe as the largest national operator, the largest public company, we should take the lead in this process," Funke Kupper said.
"The reality today is that there are still quite a few betting operators who can refuse to give information – even though they might informally do that – and they don't financially support the sport.
"We've decided to take the lead and we hope others will follow because it's in the interests of the sport and, long term, in the interests of the betting operator to make sure the integrity is maintained at the level we are accustomed to."
NRL boss David Gallop confirmed talks were also underway with a number of other bookmakers and also state governments to ensure "mechanisms are in place to give us an insight into sports betting and the bets that are made on the NRL".
Asked if the AFL had been heavy-handed in fining players, particularly those guilty of only small wagers, Gallop said:
"We would take a commonsense approach if we ever found ourselves in that position, but I can't criticise the AFL for their handling of their recent issue.
"I don't think if a player has made a $5 mistake they should be kicked out of the game, but it is an area we have to be very clear on. Players and officials can't bet on rugby league and we can't be half pregnant on that."
Funke Kupper said the magnitude of the sponsorship deal reflected rugby league's importance in sports betting markets.
"We do around $140 million in turnover in the NRL which is considerably larger than the AFL or any other sport," he said.
"We take around five million individual bets each year, so you can see this is a very important part of our business."
Sports betting accounts for about 10 per cent of the TAB's total wagering revenue but is its largest growth area. The new deal will allow TAB Sportsbet to use the NRL's intellectual property to promote sports betting.
Gallop said there would be no tightening of rules concerning the naming of starting teams because "we don't want to get to the stage where the tail is wagging the dog. It is a physically demanding game and coaches need to be able to name fully fit sides".

As a punter and rugby league fan, it is music to my ears to finally hear David Gallop (the NRL) acknowledge the possibility of official corruption and indicate efforts to guard against it. It’s great to hear that they are taking a stance against players and officials betting on the game. I trust they are doing more than simply watching the betting.
Ultimately I would like to see the final decision making of contentious rulings taken away from an individual referee. e.g. three video referees (majority rule) who can overrule the on field ref, captains and/or coaches having the right to appeal for an over-ruling of a contentious call… send it up to the video ref’s.
I know this is radical and probably won’t happen any time soon but I think its worth a bit of consideration and debate.