Idea for video ref system

[The Engineers Room]

I have had this idea for a while but thought I would float it and see what people think.

The games broadcasters should provide two cameras (one along the dead ball line, one behind the dead ball line) that are not used for coverage but are constantly streamed to the video referee.

Every game would have two video referees that are not in the same room. They both receive the telecast coverage and the two cameras. They are given a technician each who plays the try from the two angles as well as the normal broadcast camera once in normal speed, once in slow motion speed.

When they see the evidence they submit their decision. If they come up with the same decision, it is adopted if it varies (try v no try or try v refs call) then the attacking team gets the benefit of the doubt. If it is both no try and the restart is the issue, the better result for the attack is adopted. If it is no try v refs call it is no try.

The independence is what I want to see.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

No.

 

[Quidgybo]

The video system needs to change in a fundamental way. We need to remove the lottery, second guessing and fear factor from the back of the referees' mind and let them get back to doing the job that they are generally pretty good at even without the additional aids. Let them call the game as they see it in real time and totally remove the option to defer to the video. Instead, put the onus back on the team captains (and coaching staff) to take the responsibility for fixing their game day grievances as they occur instead of trawling them thru the media after the games in a continual stream of whinging, controversy and bad publicity.

In the current system, anything close and the ref defers making a decision and sends it up stairs. Except in the rare instance where the video can justify a Refs Call, the video ref has to make a decision regardless of how inconclusive the evidence. As most the decisions are lineball anyway this leaves virtually all of them a disputable 50-50 video lottery. 10 different people will come up with 10 different views of what happened and without the right of reply to explain how his call was decided, the video ref is almost always going to come out of it looking like he's "struggling to get them right".

A Challenge system changes all that. No longer is the video ref having to make the decision - in each and every case the decision has already been made on the field. That decision made on the field is now the default position. Unless there is "indisputable video evidence" (the proof required in the NFL) that the wrong call has been made, the existing decision stands. This takes all the pressure off the video ref. He no longer has to take a decision on lineball situations. If it's too close to call then no more disputable 50-50 video lottery, the existing decision stands. There will still be people arguing the decision is wrong but the blame won't lie at the feet of the video ref, it'll be back with the ref on the field. He makes all the calls and the video can only reverse them if they are Challenged and clearly wrong.

The second factor that totally changes the way the video works is who is calling it. Instead of the on field ref simply referring anything close even if he is pretty sure of what happened, now the teams themselves are deciding when the video is called. And more importantly it doesn't have to be an open ended option - there can be a limit in the number of times it can be called (two or three per team per match) and a cost for a bad Challenge (an interchange). This immediately means you're going to have fewer lineball referrals. Teams aren't going to throw Challenges and Interchanges away on every close call, they'll save them for when they're pretty sure the video shows the on field decision was clearly wrong. So the sort of calls handed to the video ref move away from the 50-50 lottery (now the on field decision is the default) and towards simply correcting the clear cut wrong decisions.

For everything else, the teams will just have to learn to live with the human errors made by the officials on the field. Which incidentally is exactly what most of the critics of the video ref are calling for. The difference is they won't be able whinge about those human errors on Monday morning because the reply can always be "well if you thought it was that obviously wrong, why didn't you Challenge it?"

Leigh.

 

[Raider_69]

agreed with the above

 

[snogard6]

The video system needs to change in a fundamental way. We need to remove the lottery, second guessing and fear factor from the back of the referees' mind and let them get back to doing the job that they are generally pretty good at even without the additional aids. Let them call the game as they see it in real time and totally remove the option to defer to the video. Instead, put the onus back on the team captains (and coaching staff) to take the responsibility for fixing their game day grievances as they occur instead of trawling them thru the media after the games in a continual stream of whinging, controversy and bad publicity.

In the current system, anything close and the ref defers making a decision and sends it up stairs. Except in the rare instance where the video can justify a Refs Call, the video ref has to make a decision regardless of how inconclusive the evidence. As most the decisions are lineball anyway this leaves virtually all of them a disputable 50-50 video lottery. 10 different people will come up with 10 different views of what happened and without the right of reply to explain how his call was decided, the video ref is almost always going to come out of it looking like he's "struggling to get them right".

A Challenge system changes all that. No longer is the video ref having to make the decision - in each and every case the decision has already been made on the field. That decision made on the field is now the default position. Unless there is "indisputable video evidence" (the proof required in the NFL) that the wrong call has been made, the existing decision stands. This takes all the pressure off the video ref. He no longer has to take a decision on lineball situations. If it's too close to call then no more disputable 50-50 video lottery, the existing decision stands. There will still be people arguing the decision is wrong but the blame won't lie at the feet of the video ref, it'll be back with the ref on the field. He makes all the calls and the video can only reverse them if they are Challenged and clearly wrong.

The second factor that totally changes the way the video works is who is calling it. Instead of the on field ref simply referring anything close even if he is pretty sure of what happened, now the teams themselves are deciding when the video is called. And more importantly it doesn't have to be an open ended option - there can be a limit in the number of times it can be called (two or three per team per match) and a cost for a bad Challenge (an interchange). This immediately means you're going to have fewer lineball referrals. Teams aren't going to throw Challenges and Interchanges away on every close call, they'll save them for when they're pretty sure the video shows the on field decision was clearly wrong. So the sort of calls handed to the video ref move away from the 50-50 lottery (now the on field decision is the default) and towards simply correcting the clear cut wrong decisions.

For everything else, the teams will just have to learn to live with the human errors made by the officials on the field. Which incidentally is exactly what most of the critics of the video ref are calling for. The difference is they won't be able whinge about those human errors on Monday morning because the reply can always be "well if you thought it was that obviously wrong, why didn't you Challenge it?"

Leigh.

I had the same idea aswell.......post 28http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/showthread.php?p=5975467#post5975467
when are these goons going to sit up and take notice of whats in the best interest of the game.

 

[nrlnrl]

There is no perfect system, but keep it simple - decide whether the policy is looking for a reason to award a try or to disallow a try. No matter what, there will be always be mistakes & complaints - limit them, be consistent & stop blatant errors from occurring.

This should be the same approach across all sports that have adopted technology to assist decision making.

 

[Frustrated Fan]

Great post Quidgybo. I am a huge advocate some kind of on field challenge rule being introduced.

Ultimately i would like to see the final decision on 50/50 calls taken away from any one individual. Your challenge system proposal goes a long way towards that but it still leaves one man in the video ref' box.

I beleive there is plenty of merrit in having 3 or 5 officials in the video ref' box to reveiw 50/50 calls with emphasis on a quick vote/majority rules decision. I don't mean stop the game for 5 minutes while they sit around and debate. Maybe a time limit could be placed on them.

As it is now we see video ref's do things like scrutinize wether a defender knocked the ball out or hit the arm, yet fail to realise it wasn't a knock on even if he did knock the ball out. One member of a panel of can quickly set the others straight by pointing out that there was no knock on anyway and all of a sudden we have correct call made by way of majority vote.

With further investigation this idea might prove to be a bad one but I reckon it deserves further consideration.... It might also rescue a few television screens from being kicked in.