NRL officials have been given a look at what could be the future of the rugby league officiating and they like what they saw.
Having returned from a nine-day fact-finding tour that took in the command centres of the NFL and the NHL in North America, NRL general manager of football operations Nathan McGuirk and interim referees boss Tony Archer will put together a report for the commission on the potential for significant changes to the video review systems. After viewing it up close, one of those changes could be the implementation of a centralised command centre, similar to the NHL's "war room" in Toronto.
"We see clear benefits of what a centralised replay system provides," McGuirk said following his return this week. "Our fans, clubs and members are all crying out for consistency, and anything we can do to improve our system, we will look at."
Under the NHL model, officials review every goal scored in the competition live on high-definition television monitors in a 12 by six metre room in Toronto. Often, they review more than one game simultaneously. The concept would allow the NRL to use a handful of match officials to adjudicate on all games.
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"They're in direct contact with both the on-ice officials and also a replay official at the ground," McGuirk said. "They have unbelievable replay technology in that they can clear a goal within a 10 second period generally.
"They've had a lot of years in developing their technology and also investing huge amounts of money into it.
"To us, looking at a similar model to that would be a direction which I believe would be a huge step forward for the game."
While the costs involved would be significant to ensure the central command centre has a live feed, the clean environment and the consistency were clear advantages. "The aspect I got out of it was the calm, controlled nature of the process which they undertake in a very sterile environment," McGuirk said. "It takes a lot of the emotion out of what occurs on game days, and what are very high-pressure situations. And they have a consistent group of people that do games day-in, day-out.
"When we were there, they had three games playing across North America, and they had the same people in the decision-making on all games. That occurs even if they have up to 11 games.
"It brings a level of consistency to decision-making which is very appealing.
"When you look at our current model, we've got around 16 to 18 video referees that we utilise across a weekend. No matter how much we try to educate them and train them on what our policies and procedures are, there is always going to be a level of difference of opinions with discretionary decisions across that core group of people.
"If you can narrow that down to a very select group of people that can do games all across the weekend, there is no doubt it would bring a greater level of consistency across our decision-making."
McGuirk and Archer also visited the command centre of the NFL headquarters in New York, while viewing the facilities at MetLife Stadium, for the New York Giants' match against Oakland Raiders, spending time with game officials as well as NFL vice-president of officiating Dean Blandino. They discussed the NFL's officiating "crews" the same group of officials operating regularly.
The NFL's Park Avenue headquarters features a command centre overseeing all aspects of officiating and operational areas officiating reviews, performance reviews, match review and injury tracking in one room.
