Around the Grounds

[HarVeeGee]

The refereeing this year is as bad as I've ever seen. The inconsistencies from week to week are ruining the product.

I watched the second half of Titans/Tigers before our game and it was borderline unwatchable. Incorrect call, captains challenge, bullshit 6 again, random play the ball infringement that's not called any other time, captains challenge etc etc. Rinse repeat until Belinda Sharpe misses a Tigers knock on (her 50th error of the day) and they go down and kick a BS field goal.

There’s a bit of an affirmative action thing going on here which is hurting the product. I’m a big supporter of women in league, but the pool of male referees is just so much bigger. If they’re mandating that at least two regular first grade referees be female, the pool of candidates for those jobs could honestly be 1% the size or less than the pool of male candidates. Likely even smaller!

You can’t pick 20%+ of the referees from a pool of less than 1% of candidates. Almost definitionally this means that Sharpe, Badger etc have the job over two more deserving male candidates. Bad refereeing can decide games unfairly. There is too much invested in the game to allow that.

And ultimately I don’t think it’s good for inclusion either, I bet plenty of punters think that women make shit referees now and we straight up shouldn’t have any, because Sharpe and Badger are so bad. Whereas, there’s no biological reason why women would be worse, there just aren’t many of them around, and they haven’t been doing it as long. They’re not getting the job on the basis of being in the top percentile of referees in the sport, they’re just better than all the relatively inexperienced women.

I’m absolutely open to the idea of a merit-based selection meaning we end up with a female referee or two, but all the referees should come from one pool. Female participation in the sport has been trending up for years. Let the march of progress follow its natural course. Don’t force it.

 

[Knight Tales]

Will Pryce interview on Sky about his experiences here. He is such a well
spoken young fella. Spoke about the coaching gulf between here and there. That he feels he did not train hard enough in his first season here and it was not till he lifted that he got his chance. That he does not see his time here as a failure.

I think we got him way too young and he was always behind the eight ball due to his slower development in England. A lesson for clubs that see young guns in England as sure things. Particularly halves and backs. Herbie Farnworth is proof the right pathways to the NRL work.

 

[Knight Tales]

There’s a bit of an affirmative action thing going on here which is hurting the product. I’m a big supporter of women in league, but the pool of male referees is just so much bigger. If they’re mandating that at least two regular first grade referees be female, the pool of candidates for those jobs could honestly be 1% the size or less than the pool of male candidates. Likely even smaller!

You can’t pick 20%+ of the referees from a pool of less than 1% of candidates. Almost definitionally this means that Sharpe, Badger etc have the job over two more deserving male candidates. Bad refereeing can decide games unfairly. There is too much invested in the game to allow that.

And ultimately I don’t think it’s good for inclusion either, I bet plenty of punters think that women make shit referees now and we straight up shouldn’t have any, because Sharpe and Badger are so bad. Whereas, there’s no biological reason why women would be worse, there just aren’t many of them around, and they haven’t been doing it as long. They’re not getting the job on the basis of being in the top percentile of referees in the sport, they’re just better than all the relatively inexperienced women.

I’m absolutely open to the idea of a merit-based selection meaning we end up with a female referee or two, but all the referees should come from one pool. Female participation in the sport has been trending up for years. Let the march of progress follow its natural course. Don’t force it.

In time I believe some of the NRLW girls will transition to refereeing post career. And it would make perfect sense for the NRL to develop them as a pathway.