Cost and referees making up 51% - sounds spot on with general consensus on this board.
I wish people would just shut the hell up and deal with this. We seem to be the only sport that looks like a joke and a laugh for other codes when it comes to refereeing. Why? Not because our referees are any better or worse then the AFL, Union, NFL or any other sport but because we go on and and on and on and we cant live with a few suspect calls. Usually calls that are in the grey area category anyway.
I for instance love watching the NFL too. They have 7 Officials watching on EVERY play, yes that's right 7 and they still get it WRONG sometimes, there are dud calls in just about every game. Why is it that nothing ever happens afterwards? Because players, coaches, commentators, analysts, newspapers don't write or brag on and on about it after every bad call that's been made.
This is where I think the NRL shoots itself in the foot here. Going around and apologising to the Cowboys or the Dragons the week before, it's ridiculous. Take a look at the dragons game, you have nrl fans and armchair experts getting all fired up because they don't understand that the on field game clock sometimes isn't in sync with the Fox sports thinking the Dragons got robbed when they were beaten fair and square.
Then you have coaches like the famous Geoff Toovey blow up last year constantly criticizing the referee. What's even worse is some of our apparently best game analysts publicly state that he's being "passionate" and that it's a "good thing". Those sorts of blow ups are an embarrassment to our game, they make us look amateurish and unprofessional. He should have been hit with a $100,000 fine and a suspension, not $10,000.
We have our best commentators and analysts constantly go on about this and that referee decision. There's an article in the paper today stating what the NRL ladder "should look like" as a result of bad calls, where does it end?? Rugby League in itself has a lot of grey areas and a lot of calls are up to the referees interpretation. Take a look at the Easter Friday game and the Coery Thompson try. The obstruction in the NRL is such a grey area in itself, then you start pausing the game and getting into hypotheticals of would Player A catch player B or was Player C slightly obstructed here. I can live and I'm happy with the try being given, Dogs win and we all go home. People just need to deal with a few questionable refereeing decisions like they do in other sports.
So to say that 22% of people don't attend footy games because of a few refereeing decisions is ridiculous and the biggest load of crap. I've never met anybody who wont go to the footy because there was a few bad calls against his team. Again it's the NRL's fault for giving people a reason to vent about referees and polls such as these are a way for people to vent.
