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The real problem with the Moi Moi penalty

B-Tron 3000

Juniors
Messages
1,803
Ok, so first off I am a Parra fan. Of course a part of me thinks that penalty cost us a chance of a fairytale finish, but i also realise that we were outplayed. And so I'm not going to complain about that penalty in isolation - it could have gone either way.

But the real problem is that we have got to the end of yet another season and the lack of direction that the referees have, along with an inability to fix rules that are causing problems while tinkering with ones that aren't, has led to a huge debate about a call that was made with three minutes to go in the Grand Final.

To explain:

In the first few minute of the game Steve Turner is tackled around the legs. Mat Keating lets go AFTER Turner hits the ground, Turner gets up and runs off, making another 15 metres. Melbourne put a grubber into the in-goal, get a repeat set, and score.

In the last five minutes Fui Fui tackles Slater around the legs, hangs on, and is penalised.

Both actions of the Parramatta players were punished. Now, this isn't an excuse why we lost, it is simply pointing out that in two identical situations the Parra players took totally opposite actions, and both were punished because of the inconsistency of the intepretations.

How could this be avoided?

Well, in the last two years we have had people saying that if a player gets up and runs again after being tackled then it should be brought back for a play-the-ball, not a penalty. Because the Turner incident was line-ball and they didn't want to give a penalty so early in a Grand Final, they let him run on. If the referees had brought him back, maybe Fui doesn't feel the need to hang on at the end.

There has also been suggestions that if you tackle around the legs you should be allowed to hang on a bit longer. The current rules encourage high tackles but then penalise when someone slips a little bit too high.

Neither of these sensible suggestions have even been thought about, never mind adopted, and yet we've had ridiculous borrowed ideas like "The Bunker" bandied about.

The people in Rugby League have always been concerned that a bad call would one day cost a team a premiership. While that is not so clear cut here, it was certainly the case of the inconsistency of ruling costing a team a chance to win. And it simply because the rules and intepretations of rules have been left to rot. Things are getting worse, not better.

Everyone in league knows its time for Finch and Harrigan to go. And take Annesley with them.
 

eels2009

Juniors
Messages
23
the refs want to be sodomized bhahahaha

you made some good points, robert finch and his clowns are at it again, destroying RL....tsk, tsk. Not melbourne's fault, they deserved to win, just wish the refs were more objective and treated each incident on a "ad-hoc" basis.
 

DubaiSaint

Juniors
Messages
54
I agree with the points, but striving for consistency in a human controlled game is an impossibility.

You have to let it go... I am sure every game from last weekend to the opening game in 1908 had at least one issue that was a subjective decision by the referee that "could of" changed the course of the game.

Its called human frailty and as a kid we were taught that the ref was always right. Perhaps we should go back to that!

Otherwise, we turn it into cricket in which every umpires call is assessed via a technological black box that we assume is 100% accurate (which it is not).

Enjoy the human emotion and the highs and lows as your team win, lose and draw because what you're asking for is impossible.
 

Eels Dude

Coach
Messages
19,065
Get over it. In the heat of the moment a ref has to make a call. They make wrong ones sometimes. It's idiotic to sit back in hindsight and compare one call to another. If we did that then we'd be comparing hundreds of calls all season.
 

mickdo

Coach
Messages
17,355
The calling back for a play the ball (instead of a penalty) when a player runs off the mark is just such a simple fix to the game that I can't believe it's never been done. Year after year we see ridiculous examples of it and it just never changes. What the hell do the coaches and NRL spend their time doing when they have these rules pow-wows at the end of the year anyway???
 
Messages
242
If the only risk or punishment is to be called back then coaches and players will try it on to see what they can get away, it would become rampant and then we will all complain how a crucial try was scored when a player was tackled then got up and proceeded to play on.
 

Usain Bolt

Bench
Messages
3,758
Ok, so first off I am a Parra fan. Of course a part of me thinks that penalty cost us a chance of a fairytale finish, but i also realise that we were outplayed. And so I'm not going to complain about that penalty in isolation - it could have gone either way.

But the real problem is that we have got to the end of yet another season and the lack of direction that the referees have, along with an inability to fix rules that are causing problems while tinkering with ones that aren't, has led to a huge debate about a call that was made with three minutes to go in the Grand Final.

To explain:

In the first few minute of the game Steve Turner is tackled around the legs. Mat Keating lets go AFTER Turner hits the ground, Turner gets up and runs off, making another 15 metres. Melbourne put a grubber into the in-goal, get a repeat set, and score.

In the last five minutes Fui Fui tackles Slater around the legs, hangs on, and is penalised.

Both actions of the Parramatta players were punished. Now, this isn't an excuse why we lost, it is simply pointing out that in two identical situations the Parra players took totally opposite actions, and both were punished because of the inconsistency of the intepretations.

How could this be avoided?

Well, in the last two years we have had people saying that if a player gets up and runs again after being tackled then it should be brought back for a play-the-ball, not a penalty. Because the Turner incident was line-ball and they didn't want to give a penalty so early in a Grand Final, they let him run on. If the referees had brought him back, maybe Fui doesn't feel the need to hang on at the end.

There has also been suggestions that if you tackle around the legs you should be allowed to hang on a bit longer. The current rules encourage high tackles but then penalise when someone slips a little bit too high.

Neither of these sensible suggestions have even been thought about, never mind adopted, and yet we've had ridiculous borrowed ideas like "The Bunker" bandied about.

The people in Rugby League have always been concerned that a bad call would one day cost a team a premiership. While that is not so clear cut here, it was certainly the case of the inconsistency of ruling costing a team a chance to win. And it simply because the rules and intepretations of rules have been left to rot. Things are getting worse, not better.

Everyone in league knows its time for Finch and Harrigan to go. And take Annesley with them.

dawson-crying.jpg
 

TeamSatan

Juniors
Messages
1,121
Thank your god you wern't alive when hartley *edit* ..........and stop crying its unaustralian
 
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