One Ref

[THE CHAMP]

Why aren’t we discussing this yet?

Also if the storm play will they be going with no refs?

 

[Perth Red]

Realistically what will it save? maybe $2mill a year? Touchies going to need some retraining on how to do their job.

I’m in favour, one ref games flow better.

 

[Welsh RL & RU watcher]

Realistically what will it save? maybe $2mill a year? Touchies going to need some retraining on how to do their job.

I’m in favour, one ref games flow better.

I'm not convinced by that buddy. What will make for reducing the time for breaks in play is to get rid of the VR. GET RID OF THE BUNKER!!!!!

 

[Perth Red]

I'm not convinced by that buddy. What will make for reducing the time FOR in breaks of play is to get rid of the VR. GET RID OF THE BUNKER!!!!!

Vr for looking at grounding And in touch only.

 

[siv]

Vr for looking at grounding And in touch only.

Bunker only used for corner post or line

And foul play

Use in-goal touch judges for the rest

 

[Canard]

Hiring more on field officials sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

 

[betcats]

I dont mind one ref but scrapping ruck penalties for tackle count restarts is to a big a change, there are always side effects of rule changes like that you cant make a big change like that without a good amount of consideration.

 

[_snafu_]

The Storm will like this move. It will allow them to get away with grubby stuff in tackles.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Against going to one referee.

Unless ruling on some aspects of gameplay is shared out to touch judges and/or some rules changed, then I cannot see how one person can effectively all the rules of the game eg referee the ruck, the ten metres, and general gameplay.

The modern game is way too fast. Teams will naturally look to take advantage wherever they can and exploit rules. The one referee will have to be fitter and faster than ever to keep up.

Will fans be happy to overlook errors that go against their team? eg opposition regularly offside, guesswork in ball lost in a tackle, forward passes missed, knock-ons... well they haven’t since 1908 so doubt that’s gonna change.

All the pressure will be on one referee to cover it all. And aside from the fans, modern day commentators all think they are Simon Cowell and blow up relentlessly when something goes against their view.

In my opinion that’s way too much to ask of one referee.

As for many who want to “let the game flow”.. this generally means less penalties. And less penalties will usually mean overlooking the rules of the game. Which to me is farcical. If a team or player flouts the rules they should be penalised - because if they aren’t then the opposition suffer.

2 referees needed but I’ll be interested to see how it goes if they do it.

 

[Perth Red]

Against going to one referee.

Unless ruling on some aspects of gameplay is shared out to touch judges and/or some rules changed, then I cannot see how one person can effectively all the rules of the game eg referee the ruck, the ten metres, and general gameplay.

The modern game is way too fast. Teams will naturally look to take advantage wherever they can and exploit rules. The one referee will have to be fitter and faster than ever to keep up.

Will fans be happy to overlook errors that go against their team? eg opposition regularly offside, guesswork in ball lost in a tackle, forward passes missed, knock-ons... well they haven’t since 1908 so doubt that’s gonna change.

All the pressure will be on one referee to cover it all. And aside from the fans, modern day commentators all think they are Simon Cowell and blow up relentlessly when something goes against their view.

In my opinion that’s way too much to ask of one referee.

As for many who want to “let the game flow”.. this generally means less penalties. And less penalties will usually mean overlooking the rules of the game. Which to me is farcical. If a team or player flouts the rules they should be penalised - because if they aren’t then the opposition suffer.

2 referees needed but I’ll be interested to see how it goes if they do it.

id say the game is actually slower than last time we had one ref. Play of the halls take ages compared to in the 90’s when you had one on one or at most two on one tackles.

biggest issue will be offside as ref watches the wrestling show at the ptb so touchies are going to have start earning their salary watching and communicating that.

 

[Canard]

id say the game is actually slower than last time we had one ref. Play of the halls take ages compared to in the 90’s when you had one on one or at most two on one tackles.

biggest issue will be offside as ref watches the wrestling show at the ptb so touchies are going to have start earning their salary watching and communicating that.

Is that a good comparison though? The 90's started to make play the balls a touch football exercise, whereby just rolling it between your legs was acceptable, and SL sped up the play the ball to an extent that running from dummy half became a major tactic.

 

[Saxon]

As for many who want to “let the game flow”.. this generally means less penalties. And less penalties will usually mean overlooking the rules of the game. Which to me is farcical. If a team or player flouts the rules they should be penalised - because if they aren’t then the opposition suffer.

Phil Gould, Andrew Johns and Channel Nein disagree with you.
If Greenburg hadn't choked on his Weet-bix and chickened out, this problem would have been sorted by the Ref's crackdown in 2018.

We had the opportunity to fix it, it was starting to work - then the NRL lost it's spine and kowtowed to their Lord and Master again.

 

[TheFrog]

The time to talk about all this in in the off season, behind closed doors and away from the harsh glare of media.

 

[Perth Red]

The time to talk about all this in in the off season, behind closed doors and away from the harsh glare of media.

the integrity of this years comp is shot anyway so might as well treat it like an exhibition year and try some new stuff out. Besides Vlandys needs to make his cuts lol

 

[TheFrog]

the integrity of this years comp is shot anyway so might as well treat it like an exhibition year and try some new stuff out. Besides Vlandys needs to make his cuts lol

The integrity of this year's comp isn't shot. You've been listening to Uncle Nick too much.

 

[10$ Ferret]

Apparently this was anm off the cuff comment made at the end of an "Apollo" meeting without any great intent. Meaning there had been little or no official discussion of it.

The media have blown this way out of proportion

 

[T-Boon]

One ref is fine, but it wont improve anything or stop coaches and commentators complaining about the refereeing and claiming that it is a crisis and worse than ever, every year.

I would allow each captain/coach a challenge each half. That's the future of ending ref blaming. That will change the focus onto the players and coaches as it should be because the game is hard to referee now because of the players and coaches trying to pull the wool over the refs eyes every chance they get.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Apparently this was anm off the cuff comment made at the end of an "Apollo" meeting without any great intent. Meaning there had been little or no official discussion of it.

The media have blown this way out of proportion

Nooooo, surely not the media.....?

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Phil Gould, Andrew Johns and Channel Nein disagree with you.
If Greenburg hadn't choked on his Weet-bix and chickened out, this problem would have been sorted by the Ref's crackdown in 2018.

We had the opportunity to fix it, it was starting to work - then the NRL lost it's spine and kowtowed to their Lord and Master again.

Yep, we disagree. I was happy with the crackdown**

Finally they were refereeing to the rules of the sport! Fancy that!

Let's not forget the charge from the Terrorgraph tribe also, led by Chief Rothfield. "Fans want consistency" combined with "Referees should let the game flow".

I get consistency but there's absolutely Zero chance of consistency when a referee is expected to overlook the rules of the sport and "let the game flow".

There's no other sport on the planet I can think of where the rules are managed as loosely as Rugby League. Indeed we had a chance to fix that, but sadly the NRL caved to the crisis merchants. Again - change the rules if necessary but referees are there to manage the game to the rules of the sport. Anything different to that is an absolute joke.

** Note - Happiness levels may have been enhanced as the Dragons were leading the comp through this time. Hence we wuz robbed afterwards!

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

id say the game is actually slower than last time we had one ref. Play of the halls take ages compared to in the 90’s when you had one on one or at most two on one tackles.

biggest issue will be offside as ref watches the wrestling show at the ptb so touchies are going to have start earning their salary watching and communicating that.

Yeah a matter of opinion mate. The actual game speed may be similar (I do think its faster personally, players bigger and fitter) but irrespective of that the things that the referee has to watch out for has increased..

Eg stripping rule (which I hate), hands on the ball in the ruck, "shoulder charge" tackles" (again which I hate), "wrestling", 40/20, Zero tackle (ie 7 tackle sets) etc etc. And while the rule may still be the same, contact with the head has quite rightly an increased need to rule on.

Individually they mightn't seem much but the sum total of each means an increased speed which the ref has to make decisions. Add general gameplay and having to run distances over 80 minutes more than any player would - one referee to cover all that would have to be super human. The 6 million dollar man.

With touchies ruling over the 10 metres - I can't see that working from the view that the defensive side are expected to go back to where the referee is, who is on the field and generally in the middle. They cant be expected to look for a touch judge here who's out of their field of vision, except for the wing n centres - and even then they'll be looking at the play the ball back in field. They'd need to all be Owls with pivot heads to keep up.

In my view of one ref came in, there'd have to be a significant change to the game to make it work.