We all have answer to refs' shockers - it's that $200 box on the TV
Roy Masters | March 24, 2009
A $200 set-top box could make rugby league almost perfect
on the field, anyway. Based on the quality of football in Channel Nine's coverage of the first two rounds, the players have rescued the code from the depths into which their colleagues plunged it, but this high standard will be undermined if the connection between the referees on the field and the man in the box is not improved.
Nothing causes players to lose confidence in officials more than the blatant knock-on by Broncos hooker Aaron Gorrell that preceded Brisbane's try in their 16-14 win over the Storm on Friday night. Neither referee saw the fumble and neither consulted the video referee before awarding the try for the simple reason their four eyes were expected to render the man upstairs obsolete during the normal course of the game.
A simple video recorder, set on 10-second delay, would solve the problem. If the video referee were to see something questionable as he watched the match from his window in real time, he could turn to check the vision on the recorder. Assuming it validates his suspicion, he would communicate the message to the chief referee via his headphones.
So, in the Broncos match, video referee Bill Harrigan would have barked out "knock-on" before referee Ben Cummins had blindly awarded the Peter Wallace try. Players from both teams stopped the moment Gorrell fumbled; sushi rolled off the paper plates of disappointed Brisbane supporters in the Suncorp Stadium boxes; Storm coach Craig Bellamy breathed a sigh of relief; and I headed to the fridge, expecting a scrum to be set, with the Storm feeding.
The knock-on was akin to a waiter dropping a tray of drinks in a crowded restaurant. Everyone stops and looks. Yet the two referees, concentrating only on the defence, missed the error by the attacking team. Ironically, the grapple tackle has cost the Storm in another game against the Broncos.
Because the two referees are so obsessed with ridding the game of the wrestle, they are not watching the team in possession. Knock-ons, obstructions, forward passes and walking off the mark are being missed as the referees take a microscopic view of every potential choke hold and chicken wing.
In the first two rounds of the season so far, up until last night's match, three out of the eight principal referees have blown just four penalties against the attacking team: Gavin Badger (1), Cummins (2) and Steve Lyons (1). In total, there have been 28 penalties against the attacking team and 203 against the defending team in the first 15 matches.
The defence is being punished in games in which the penalty count is already too high. This is affecting the flow of games. Sure, the standard is high, and footballers have always had an admirable sense of responsibility for performing best when their livelihood is under siege, but the game could flow even better if referees read the body language of the players.
Certainly, they would have blown the whistle in the 44th minute on Friday night if they'd noticed what was apparent to almost everyone when Gorrell knocked on at dummy-half. Perhaps the two referees - Cummins and Tony De Las Heras - were looking at each other.
Sometimes referees don't like each other. Having two enemies in charge of 34 young men with sharp antennas is a potent mix. Imagine Greg McCallum and Bill Harrigan on the field at the same time, or what would be worse
Greg Hartley and Jack Danzey.
NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley likes the idea of the $200 set-top box.
"First I've heard about it," he said, even though I raised the same solution after the 2006 grand final, when the Storm were also disadvantaged by the referee not consulting the video man in the loss to Brisbane.
This system has been in use in US college football for some time, with multiple boxes set on 15-, 20- and 25-second delays, allowing the video referee multiple checks, without needing to rewind. Annesley later called to say: "I've checked and it is technically feasible. All we would require would be hard-disc recorders for each video referee box, plus an accompanying TV monitor. It certainly can be done."
Annesley, as a former top referee, understands the gut-wrenching despair players feel when they are robbed by blatant errors.
"With so many eyes on the game now, it's hard to justify missing a major breach," he said. "The $200 set top box is certainly a valid solution to using the eyes of the video referee without interrupting the flow of the game."
