Penalty Differentials

[Lambretta]

If you could chart where on the field, the state of the game and what difference penalties can be credited for causing you might garner a lot more support. If you leave it to people to believe Roosters players aren't listening to their coach or mentally geniused no-one will give a shit

I will start doing this next season if it continues out of sheer frustration

But we are not at fault for penalties we don't receive
It is especially jarring to note that teams consistantly give away more penalties in the week before and after playing us than they do in games against us

Once you discount things such as teams kicking out on the full or unintentional offside penalties and leave just the subjective penalties in, I would expect the outcome to be even worse. But I cannot comment until I have more data.

I don't want to come out with some form of tin foil hat f**king conspiracy theory, because I don't think it's that obvious. I believe the whole issue is unintentional, but it's there and it hurts us as a club.

 

[Lambretta]

So which is it - are the refs incompetent or are they somehow pulling off a large-scale systematic cheating scandal?

Personally I don't think it's either
I think it really comes down to the human sub-conscious

 

[Packy]

Fkn cheats.

 

[Jason Maher]

I can only think there is some sort of unconscious bias at play. The penalty differential is irrelevant, it is just a by-product of the actual statistical anomaly: penalties awarded to the Roosters. The fact it has been going on for over a decade is difficult to write off as a statistical fluke. For whatever the reason, the Roosters receive fewer penalties than any other team, by a fair margin, and have done for a long time. I can't imagine it's an NRL-level conspiracy. If anything like that were in play, Politis' clout would be far more likely to see it go the other way. The only explanation that seems likely to me is that there is an unconscious bias among referees. The odds are astronomical that it is mere happenstance.

 

[Danish]

I can only think there is some sort of unconscious bias at play. The penalty differential is irrelevant, it is just a by-product of the actual statistical anomaly: penalties awarded to the Roosters. The fact it has been going on for over a decade is difficult to write off as a statistical fluke. For whatever the reason, the Roosters receive fewer penalties than any other team, by a fair margin, and have done for a long time. I can't imagine it's an NRL-level conspiracy. If anything like that were in play, Politis' clout would be far more likely to see it go the other way. The only explanation that seems likely to me is that there is an unconscious bias among referees. The odds are astronomical that it is mere happenstance.

That is my feeling on the matter. A sub-conscious bias is drilled into referees during their training sessions and through various policies like making them study for upcoming games.

If you are sat down and told that these 7 players are the ones to watch this weekend, you naturally aren't going to watch the others as closely. If you are shown video highlight packages of what you should be focusing on that weekend and the majority of it focuses on one team, you are naturally going to focus on them. You then penalise them more, review the tapes, see that you penalised that team a lot and add that to the notes for the next ref in charge of them the week after and the cycle starts again.

Its not a conspiracy targeting the Roosters. Its just an inevitability of the completely ridiculous way they training referees. If you base your training around building up preconceived ideas prior to stepping onto the field, it is only a matter of time before one team becomes the unlucky one to fall into the vicious cycle of gaining a reputation and then that becoming a self fulfilling every week.

The whole way that referees are coached and trained needs to be changed from the top down. This Bill Harrigan method of refereeing with constant coaching, addressing players by their first names, and studying previous game footage to see where players got one over you needs to go.

 

[neeknitsuj]

Considering Aubo and SKD got pinged for non-existent strips, and I wouldn't call them 'players to watch' I really doubt it's a subconscious issue. They're doing it on purpose.

 

[Canard]

Its not a conspiracy targeting the Roosters. Its just an inevitability of the completely ridiculous way they training referees. If you base your training around building up preconceived ideas prior to stepping onto the field, it is only a matter of time before one team becomes the unlucky one to fall into the vicious cycle of gaining a reputation and then that becoming a self fulfilling every week.

That is basically the definition of conspiracy. That Roosters players are being targeted at the expense of others.

 

[firechild]

That is basically the definition of conspiracy. That Roosters players are being targeted at the expense of others.

Your attempts to deflect the conspiracy theorist tag to another club's fans is quite humorous.

 

[Danish]

That is basically the definition of conspiracy. That Roosters players are being targeted at the expense of others.

A conspiracy requires intent. A conspiracy would be people sitting down and saying "we don't want the Roosters to win. We should try and stop them through penalties". That is not happening.

A club ending up the receiver of biased decisions through a flawed training system is not a conspiracy. It is incompetence.

 

[Canard]

I'm sure a club with the smarts and resources of Roosters would have sat down by now and put together a comprehensive package of where they believed they were wronged or not been given a fair go. This package would have then been then supplied to the NRL and or press.

Personally, I feel this current press is very "convenient" and they are happy for no further analysis than just looking at the raw numbers to be discussed openly.

 

[Danish]

The club used to try and take action. Robinson himself has stated he used to try and call for explanations on penalties and decisions from Archer, but after being repeatedly fobbed off, getting the runaround, or simply not having his calls returned he gave up.

I can't recall what game it was after last year, but he mentioned it in a press conference when a question came up about refereeing. Just said he doesn't waste his time going to the referees about issues as you get no assistance.

 

[Canard]

The club used to try and take action. Robinson himself has stated he used to try and call for explanations on penalties and decisions from Archer, but after being repeatedly fobbed off, getting the runaround, or simply not having his calls returned he gave up.

I can't recall what game it was after last year, but he mentioned it in a press conference when a question came up about refereeing. Just said he doesn't waste his time going to the referees about issues as you get no assistance.

The Roosters have enough influence in the media however to raise this independently.

The fact that it hasn't got any traction with any press, excepting one tabloid article that no-one cares about, suggests it's not being pursued very actively.

 

[Danish]

who do we have influence over in the press exactly?

The only former Rooster working in the media is now running the Panthers and uses all his bias to benefit them where possible. He is also one of the key proponents of the "roosters give away penalties on purpose" myth.

Fittler brings it up from time to time but he just gets laughed at by his coke fiend buddy and dismissed by Sterlo.

If we really had so much control and influence in the media a completely fabricated "drugs scandal" against RTS would not have come out during the 2013 finals series

 

[Vic Mackey]

The only former Rooster working in the media is now running the Panthers and uses all his bias to benefit them where possible. He is also one of the key proponents of the "roosters give away penalties on purpose" myth.

Again, how is it a myth when Jason Taylor openly admitted the Roosters do this at the tigers members day earlier this year?

 

[POPEYE]

A replay of the Melbourne game is about to start on Fox, if I wasn't happy that Melbourne won the lucky dip I'd get out pen and paper and analyse the penalties . . . good time with this thread in the forefront

 

[Lambretta]

Again, how is it a myth when Jason Taylor openly admitted the Roosters do this at the tigers members day earlier this year?

Because we don't give away any more penalties than any other side

How can a team that is infamously ill disciplined give away fewer total penalties than half the other teams in the competition?

It seems to be supporters of other teams that keep mentioning the penalties the Roosters concede.

We are not talking about the penalties we concede. We are complaining that we are not awarded the same number of penalties as anyone else.

That has nothing to do with us

I am comparing the numbers of penalties conceded by other teams against us in comparrison to everyone else. The Roosters cannot control the penaties conceded by other teams or the games they're not involved in

Once again - for the slow of understanding. We do not conceded more penalties than anyone else. We are however awarded close to half as many as everyone else.

So how does that have anything to do with our discipline?

 

[Tommy Smith]

People can mock us Roosters fans about crazy conspiracies all they like, but i fail to see how this is merely happenstance.

And there's A LOT more of equally disturbing facts where that came from.

 

[Valheru]

I can only think there is some sort of unconscious bias at play. The penalty differential is irrelevant, it is just a by-product of the actual statistical anomaly: penalties awarded to the Roosters. The fact it has been going on for over a decade is difficult to write off as a statistical fluke. For whatever the reason, the Roosters receive fewer penalties than any other team, by a fair margin, and have done for a long time. I can't imagine it's an NRL-level conspiracy. If anything like that were in play, Politis' clout would be far more likely to see it go the other way. The only explanation that seems likely to me is that there is an unconscious bias among referees. The odds are astronomical that it is mere happenstance.

Hit the nail on the head here. I don?t think any chooks fan believes the referees are openly ripping the roosters off in the penalty department. We get our fair share of 50/50 calls and outright wrong calls in other areas of the game, see DWZ no try in round 3 as an example.

However, there must be more to the consistent non-penalising of our opposition.

 

[Chook Norris]

People can mock us Roosters fans about crazy conspiracies all they like, but i fail to see how this is merely happenstance.

And there's A LOT more of equally disturbing facts where that came from.

I wouldn't bring up the penalty differentials. It's clear that bringing it up gives ammo to roosters haters who bring out how ill-disciplined we are. The same haters, however, can't explain how we receive so little penalties, which is something that is out of our control. Hammering the penalties received aspect is far more effective. Only a few other opposition supporters here have offered some possibly logical conclusions.I agree with Danish, it's not a conspiracy - It's incompetence by the referees. Referees are over-policing our players so much that when the other team infringes they don't view their offences in the same regard as penalty worthy. That's incompetence and the referees not doing their job fairly in refereeing both sides

 

[Tommy Smith]

I take your point but those stats are so skewed that it gives an insight into how few penalties we must receive in order for such anomalies to be possible.

For example, when we lost the penalty count 11-2 to Manly last year. That doesn't happen to any other team, not to that extent.

I don't think I'll live long enough to see us thrash a team 10-2 or so in penalties. But we cop hammerings like that 2 or 3 times a year.

It's remarkable.