Inside the NRL’s match review committee and why they don’t even agree with each other
By
Adam Pengilly
May 7, 2021
It’s only an hour after daybreak and four old footballers are poring over a video which has been circulating in their WhatsApp group.
They’ve watched the clips over and over again, looking at bodies and limbs contorting in every direction, working out where the contact is, the force involved, and then finally deciding if the video is enough for the player to be in trouble.
But let’s not scare the integrity unit.
This is the inner workings of the NRL’s match review committee, a favourite punching bag of angry coaches, confused players and irate fans.
What they hell were they watching? How on earth did Latrell Mitchell get four weeks for that? Where did they pluck this hip drop tackle from? Did Josh Curran really get charged for a head clash? How soft do they want the game to become? Don’t they know he’s got a State of Origin game to play next week!
Last weekend the
Herald was given exclusive access to the NRL’s match review process, from watching matches in real time to debating the merits of dozens of incidents arising from eight games.
Four mornings a week match review committee chair Michael Robertson, the former Canberra and Manly winger who scored a grand final hat-trick and has a busy day job as the chief executive of an apparel company, speaks to fellow panel members Michael Hodgson, Luke Patten and Anthony Quinn over Webex.
It’s usually at a time when footballers of yesteryear would be stumbling home after a night at Northies.
But these guys risk popularity in their own households as they delay breakfast with their families to help keep the game clean.
You might not agree with them. Most have had scratched their head and thought, ‘how did they arrive at that?’ But watching how the MRC work gives a clear insight into how thorough their process is – and that they don’t always agree with each other.
By the time the quartet have logged on this morning, they’ve requested multiple medical reports from clubs about potential injuries to players. If they find there’s enough to sustain a charge against a player, then the medical report will come into play with regard to grading.
Each member is assigned to a game and flags incidents in the next day’s review, seeking opinions of his fellow reviewers. There’s debate, and plenty of it. They can instantly recall similar tackles to ones they’re assessing, and within seconds can watch incidents from previous years to help guide them.
The problem for the match review committee is also rugby league’s greatest strength: tribalism. If you’re a Tigers fan, it’s hard to look at the match review committee through anything other than a Tigers lens and so on.
When the
Herald sat in on the review, the panel is interrogating a tackle from a match on Saturday night.
One panel member can’t see enough to lay a dangerous contact charge.
“I don’t see [player] doing a helluva lot wrong here,” he says. “I don’t see him putting him in a dangerous position. He’s making a genuine attempt at a tackle. I just think this is OK. I don’t see a lot wrong with this.”
It’s quickly countered, while the replays keep rolling.
“He made forceful contact with a player in a vulnerable position,” says another. “We can’t use an injury to make it a charge, but if we deem his actions careless we can consider the injury. I’ve got this as a charge.”
Adds the next panel member: “Applying the code, I think we can support a grade one charge. The more we talk through it the more confident I am it ticks all the boxes to sustain a charge.”
But it doesn’t end there.
“I just don’t see enough for it to be a charge. I’m still below a charge, but I take everyone’s points on board.”
The panel often debate through differing views, says Robertson.
“That happens often,” he says . “There is difference in opinions a lot of the time.”
In just under an hour, the panel has wrapped up the matches from the previous night. The player is charged.
Hodgson started on the match review committee more than seven years ago. He would sit down in his lounge room with his Foxtel remote and would see what everyone else did. He would pause, rewind, play, stop, stare, over and over again, but he was always at the mercy of the TV match director.
One of the first games he was rostered to review was an early season match in Melbourne on a Monday night. Newcastle’s rangy red-headed back-rower, Alex McKinnon, carted the ball into the Storm defence before being lifted in a tackle.
Later, McKinnon would be diagnosed a quadriplegic.
Hodgson had to watch the tackle many times to help the panel decide how it should be handled. The matter was referred straight to the NRL judiciary, where Jordan McLean was found guilty of a grade two dangerous throw. He was suspended for seven matches, after McKinnon’s life-changing injury was taken into account.
Back in those days, the panel would make a phone call to Fox Sports on a Monday morning and ask for any extra angles to help them decide on a controversial incident. The tapes would be swiftly couriered across the Harbour Bridge.
(TBC)....
