bulldog said:
I agree, the players are listening for the call from the ref before they decide wether or not to stick around in the tackle.
I don't see why the ref has to coach the players through making a tackle anyway, they should call held and then police the ruck - not predetermine how long a tackler is going to get based on some unclear ever-changing semi-rule interpretation.
I agree.
Ironically, I think the problem may be that the referees are taking too much external criticism and commentary on board. It wasn't long ago that we had Steve Clark award over 20 penalties in that Friday night game, and ever since then we've had to endure Phil Gould rant on about how referees should minimise penalties. Is it co-incidence that now we're seeing abnormally low penalty counts?? I'm very disappointed referees ask the video ref what the penalty count is - it SHOULD NOT and DOES NOT matter.
I refereed Craig Coleman's Mascot under-10s side yesterday, and he had a go at me after the game for the 8-0 penalty count against his side. Up until then, I had no idea at all what the penalty count was, and that's how it should be. If referees are consistent, then penalty counts will be SOLELY determined by what the players do. As such, why are NRL referees concerning themselves about something which, if they are consistent, is
out of their control??
I think it should also be remembered, though, that teams are
constantly seeking and executing ways of bending the rules to their advantage, ie, manipulating the referee. In the ruck, for example, defenders will hold the player down a bit after the tackle is complete, even though technically they should immediately get off him and let him play the ball. If they do this, though, there is a good chance they won't be able to get to marker, so what they do then is hold the player down with their hands, while standing up and getting to marker to make it less obvious. Ball-carriers are not innocent, either, often they'll advance the mark forward a couple of metres to prevent markers from having a chance to get onside. Sometimes they'll even hold down a defender in a tackle to try to draw a penalty.
There's nothing wrong with doing this - it's gamesmanship. Our job as referees, though, is to identify and punish acts of gamesmanship. Gamesmanship goes as far as the coaches, who might come out and state that referees have an agenda against their side, in order to shift focus away from their own poor discipline.
I think in this specific case of over- and under-penalising, the mistake referees have made is in going from on extreme to the other. Simple as that. Avoid extremes.
Ok, rant over
