I don't like Roy Masters on thebest of days, but Icouldn't agree a whole lot more with him after reading this article. Well said Roy you old fart:
Why the NRL should have stood by its man
ByRoy Masters at
[url]www.smh.com.au[/url] The Tammy Wynette song
Stand By Your Man should be blasted into National Rugby League headquarters by loudspeaker, say club bosses angry at referee Bill Harrigan's sacking. Support for Harrigan grew yesterday following his dumping after NRL officials reviewed the tape of Friday night's Knights-Eels match, in which the code's No1 referee four times sent Parramatta players to the sin bin. Newcastle chairman Michael Hill declared that NRL officials should be forced to listen to the American country and western singer's 1968 signature tune, to remind them that loyalty to its top men should endure as one of the code's proudest boasts. Although Wynette didn't exactly follow her own advice - being married five times - former commentator and international Rex Mossop also stood stoutly beside Harrigan. Mossop yesterday told a 600-guest luncheon, organised to promote Friday night's one-off Test between Australia and Great Britain, that he "rejected and resented" Harrigan's demotion.<br clear=all>
Addressing "the boffins from the NRL down the front here" and Parramatta, whom he inferred had led the charge against Harrigan, Mossop said: "I want to say that I'm appalled by what happened to Bill Harrigan. It weakens rugby league, allowing a club or clubs to dictate to the NRL or the Australian Rugby League about who's going to be the referee. "He has been given the complete arse by the NRL. I hope that some of you people sitting out there, however few there may be, would just stand up and applaud me for a minute in this." No-one stood. A few clapped - after all, Harrigan is a referee. The possibility of Harrigan, like Mossop, becoming a dual international was a contributing factor to his sacking. NRL board members were incensed by his refusal at the weekend to rule out a switch to rugby union. "He was supposed to be defending his rulings in the Parramatta game, yet spent the time talking about refereeing international rugby union matches," one NRL director said. Referees boss Peter Louis said: "I can understand why the powers that be might be unhappy with Bill's reaction to the question. It didn't come into my decision-making, but may have come into the decision-making of [NRL chief executive] David Gallop and [chief operations officer] Graham Annesley. "Bill had a chat with them before we all sat down to make the decision. It probably was the wrong thing to say, in hindsight, even if it was tongue-in-cheek." Nevertheless, senior Australian Rugby Union officials insist that Harrigan remains a target to referee internationals after next year's World Cup. Union's biggest problem is stoppages in play, and Harrigan's greatest asset is his ability to adjudicate on the run, warning players to avoid breaches. But it was this ability that deserted him on Friday night when, according to Louis, "Bill painted himself into a corner". "With 30 minutes to go and two players already in the sin bin, Bill had to keep putting them in the sin bin," Louis said. "He should have dragged the captains out and told them, 'This is doing nothing for the game'. "He should have warned them that if it keeps going, the next holding down penalty he gets will be another sin bin." Whether a midfield powwow would have settled tempers in Friday night's volatile atmosphere is debatable, but Louis insists it will be a template for future action. "We've learnt something from it," he said. "We must have a structure in place when it comes to a second or third sin binning, and the policy of a referee addressing both captains will be put into our guidelines: let's get consistency with ourselves." What it means is that the code's top referee has been sacrificed as complaints concerning match officials reach a crescendo. "I don't think the week off will do him any harm," Louis said. The bottom line is this: the NRL are bringing Harrigan down a peg or two. They believe his ego dominated Friday night's game and had grown to the size of Tasmania with his weekend media appearances. <u>Loyalty may be the code's strongest asset, but big-headedness is its greatest crime.
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The Raging-One
