Sydney Roosters Trent Robinson savages NRL referees in another tired act from coaches that should know better
Phil Lutton
April 26, 2016, 3:29 p.m.
In the emotional whirl of a post-game media conference, the sound of a coach ripping into a referee is too hard to resist.
It's guaranteed click-bait, a compelling sound byte and adds to the "drama" that everyone so adores about the greatest game of all.
It's also becoming a tired act. Sniping and tearing at officials after a defeat, regardless of how valid the point may be, has become the easy way out for coaches whose teams are feeling the pinch, or just lost on the kind of the 50-50 call that has no doubt gone their way in the past.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson kept little up his sleeve when he began his rant after losing to the Dragons. He may as well have plonked the $10k on the desk in front of him and thrown it around the room like 50 Cent in a nightclub before he unleashed his zingers on Ben Cummins and the NRL Bunker.
It's hardly a revolutionary tactic. Matthew Johns was quick to label it a "power play" aimed at ensuring the Roosters don't get lumped with Cummins in the future.
They consider him to be disrespectful and to have a poor working relationship with Jake Friend, the club captain. In their eyes, I'm sure they consider it the honest truth. Most would call it a conspiracy theory.
Wayne Bennett uses it as a diversion when he wants to take the heat off his team, yet does it with more style and substance.
Des Hasler has been a practitioner of the dark art as well, somehow blending a few hard-hitting points with the comedic over the years as he danced along the fine line between sanction and what he might consider a helpful suggestion.
Robinson's performance had all the hallmarks of a coach running out of answers. And his dubious notion that the game should be extra-tough because it was played in Anzac Day was bordering on distasteful, similar to likening a game of football to a war.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, there are probably some points worth reviewing via the correct avenues.
The NRL Bunker has tweaks to be made yet in the overall evidence presented this season, has performed admirably.
If players are lying down to milk penalties, that too is hardly fresh ground to cover, not can it be realistically be blamed on presence of extra video surveillance from officials.
Robinson finds himself in unfamiliar waters. He has been a wildly successful coach in charge of a talented team that has topped the NRL for the past three seasons.
Now with just one win on the board and a perception that the world has turned their back on the tricolours, he must show that he can be an elite mentor not just when the victories roll in like breakers at Bondi Beach.
How can his young players hold it together under increasing pressure if their coach cannot?
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/s...oaches/?cs=302
Some unbiased reading on the issue.
For what it is worth, the Kane Evans penalty was absolutely ridiculous and Jake Friend was right, just because it was hard doesn't mean it was late. However, what really annoys me is you keyboard warriors that are so sure that all these players take dives. Let me tell you it bloody well hurts an awful lot when a guy your weight and half again smashes you just after you have passed the ball. If you don't believe it, why don't you go out to the park and get Kane Evans to smash you just after passing the ball to a mate.
