I disagree, the NRL refs make a lot more right decisions in a much faster game than we do here in local leagues. As one of the blokes slogging it out for bugger all to help my local game I know there are plenty of horrid decisions made in the amateur game that you would never see in NRL - apart from some of the rubbish the bunker comes up with. NRL refs also constantly have every decision scrutinised by video. If you had that in local games the refs would be shown to get a decision wrong every minute - someone offside or a knock on in the ruck that you didn't see because you have to keep an eye on 5 different things at once. The NRL refs are definitely better at officiating the rules - the problems at NRL level comes from the interpretations and so on from higher up, not the refs themselves.
There are players offside literally every tackle in the NRL. They are called centres, and they are trained to stand offside. Its let go in general play because it would be pointless to ping them, although it has seen a huge increase in offside penalties when defending your line since the NRL decreed that was an issue this season. If you think back to who was getting pinged for those offside penalties all year, it was invariably the centre.
Referees decisions are obviously more scrutinised in the NRL, but I do not agree they get more things right. They have more systems to protect them against incorrect decisions - a 2nd ref, 2 professional touchies, a 4th ref in sky, and then the bunker - but on the fly decisions? About on par I'd say, especially when it comes to strips, knocks ons, obstruction, and other highly subjective decisions.
I also disagree on the NRL players v amateur players thing. There are a ton of big, stupid NRL players who would be not much more than overweight slobs at amateur level, the difference being they were scouted at 14 when they could just run through everyone and from then on were kept on NRL level conditioning. Not surprisingly this kind of approach to juniors has led to our lack of quality halves.
There is no NRL club who wouldn't continue to scout players into their 20s if they are actually any good. Most squads take on plenty of park footballers with promise to train with the NRL squad and see if they show anything. Maybe a handful in the last decade have managed to make anything of that opportunity.
Add to that the fact that we can barely even find enough talent to actually fill squads as it is and no, I don't think there is just a huge depth of NRL quality talent out there just needing a bit of fitness training.
I do think though that there are plenty of NRL quality refs out there who are simply never given a shot at the big time, mostly for nepotistic/political reasons as opposed to any lack in talent.
The fact that we have only 22 professional referees in Australia, yet somehow 3 of them are brothers and 2 are married..... Lets just say thats highly unlikely to me.
The NRL needs to get its refereeing house in order, trying to encourage more people to stick with it at the lower levels. Increase the talent pool and professionalism of squads in the lower grades and then use NRL as a form of rep football i.e. reffing first grade is an honour, not a job.
Imagine a player deciding to go on strike from playing origin in the hopes of getting paid more for the game? They'd have given his jersey to someone else in a matter of minutes. Similarly if the NRL were to simply let go of refs that won't accept the pay conditions there would be dozens putting their hand up and able to do the job in their place.
I'm fine with NRL refs earning that much, they cop constant abuse and are hated around the country (something which I'm surprised the NRL hasn't tried to do more on) and also need to prepare for life after retirement the same as players do. If money is to be taken from refereeing ranks it should be from the bunker - what a waste of money that was. These $30k or $50k player match payments for rep games are much more expendable than ref payments and should be used to recruit more refs around the country along with helping out the game in general, including better payments and compensation for minimum wage players.
I'd love to see money taken from the bunker. I also have no idea why we need to have a 6 coaching staff for a squad of 20 bloody referees, or why we need 2 x NRL bosses in Archer and Sutton.
Rep game payments are there to keep hold of the best players in the game. If we don't pay them, they'll go elsewhere. Any state of origin quality player could walk into a big money contract playing rugby in europe, for example. Where is an NRL ref going to go if we don't double their salary? Back to swinging a hammer, teaching maths class, walking the beat, or whatever 9-5 job they have prior to coming on board.
Just as an aside - in my local area we'd often have about 12 refs for 20 games over a weekend, these 12 refs would also have to TJ in these games meaning 4 or 5 games for one ref. I can safely say there isn't anywhere where a referee is struggling to get a game. The situation is dire and will continue to deteriorate if the attitude towards referees continues the way it is.
I absolutely agree with that. There is absolutely zero resources put into encouraging people to become refs in our game. I mean sure you have pay for accreditation, slog it out through reffing/babysitting kids games for a year or two before finally moving onto the decent stuff, all the while managing your own fitness for the most part and copping abuse (hopefully only verbal, but who knows) every week all through it..... but at least the pay sucks!
At the very least NRL refs salaries should be capped at where they are for the foreseeable future, with all money pumped into improving conditions at the grassroots level for refereeing.
