NRL Finals Week 1

I don't think they got heaps wrong - it's just the ones they did mess up, they messed up MASSIVELY, and it shades the rest of the 50/50's.

The Oates penalty was so blatantly wrong it hurts to think about, and the kicking incident should have been an instant penalty. The over-ruled knock on, I thought was fair enough (and warranted), but if they can jump in there, common sense says they should have had the power to and decency to overturn the Oates howler.

Incidentally, Broncos fans probably ended up getting the rough end of the pineapple on the Roberts "no-penalty". If he'd been pinged straight away, that would have 90% likely been it, and no charge to answer for.

Now, with remarkable clarity of hindsight (and a quick check on twitter), the MRC have had to charge him.

The refs were shit... and rightly sacked

dasherhalo wrote:I don't think they got heaps wrong - it's just the ones they did mess up, they messed up MASSIVELY, and it shades the rest of the 50/50's.

The Oates penalty was so blatantly wrong it hurts to think about, and the kicking incident should have been an instant penalty. The over-ruled knock on, I thought was fair enough (and warranted), but if they can jump in there, common sense says they should have had the power to and decency to overturn the Oates howler.

Incidentally, Broncos fans probably ended up getting the rough end of the pineapple on the Roberts "no-penalty". If he'd been pinged straight away, that would have 90% likely been it, and no charge to answer for.

Now, with remarkable clarity of hindsight (and a quick check on twitter), the MRC have had to charge him.

The refs were shit... and rightly sacked

This is a great post, except I don't agree with the last line. Not because of their performance, but because you should only get dropped for someone better than you, and quite frankly I think that Ceccin is possibly the worst ref I've ever seen (Jared Maxwell is terrible as well, but at least he communicates okay with players), so I can't see how he deserves to be promoted over anyone.

I agree whole heartedly that if Roberts had of been penalised, the MRC wouldn't have charged him, and we would still have won comfortably.

Also, I have a real problem with the whole 50/50 call concept (not just in this match - but there has been a lot of talk about it with this game). IMO there is maybe 1 call a weekend which is genuinely 50/50. The rest are either right or wrong. Take the over-ruled knock on for example. In my opinion it clearly came of the Titans player first. Same with the Hurrell kick and the Hayne forward pass. To me, people complaining about Gold Coast not getting these calls (and yes I am excluding the Oates penalty and Roberts no penalty) might as well be saying "Often referees make mistakes and don't call things like that even though they're supposed to. If the refs made a mistake with some of those calls so the Titans incorrectly got the scrum feed instead of the Broncos, then the Titans were a better chance of winning".

Right you are. I hadn't considered the alternatives

Still - if your position is safe, just because the bloke behind you is worse, where's the incentive to get better? There's no reason to reach for the carrot if the stick is taken away....

dasherhalo wrote:Right you are. I hadn't considered the alternatives

Still - if your position is safe, just because the bloke behind you is worse, where's the incentive to get better? There's no reason to reach for the carrot if the stick is taken away....

Really, he probably made 1 howler, and that was the Oates call. The Roberts kick would have been the pocket ref's responsibility I'd say, the Hayne forward pass would have been called by the touchie, and pretty much all other "controversial" calls were made by the video ref.

There certainly seems to be a stage now where the players and game are advancing far more than the refs are. I'm not surprised though, the shit refs have to cope with when they're progressing through the ranks probably wouldn't really encourage them to think it's a good career option.

It's the black and white aspect I don't like.

What I'd like to see is a week or two in ressies for the ref's be the standard for a bad game. If you remove the career-ending stigma of a howler, and accept a quick demotion to second grade, we could probably move away from "the bloke made an obvious mistake - he MUST be crucified", to "the bloke made a howler - off he goes for a 2 week stint".

No ref is going to be perfect, and as long as we have the technology to point out every tiny error they make..... a perfect ref there cannot be.

I'll say one thing though. As long as the media sets the tone for things like the MRC, and referee lynchings, things won't be getting better. A more transparent system is needed, with some actual accountability.

dasherhalo wrote:It's the black and white aspect I don't like.

What I'd like to see is a week or two in ressies for the ref's be the standard for a bad game. If you remove the career-ending stigma of a howler, and accept a quick demotion to second grade, we could probably move away from "the bloke made an obvious mistake - he MUST be crucified", to "the bloke made a howler - off he goes for a 2 week stint".

No ref is going to be perfect, and as long as we have the technology to point out every tiny error they make..... a perfect ref there cannot be.

I'll say one thing though. As long as the media sets the tone for things like the MRC, and referee lynchings, things won't be getting better. A more transparent system is needed, with some actual accountability.

I'm normally generally in agreeance with a lot of your comments dasher but this would be a terrible outcome.

Happy to remove the stigma associated with a ref making a bad call but realistically you need the ref's to be confident and even if this became the norm, I think that still chips away at their confidence.

Ref's are always going to make a bad call but preferably, I'd like to go back to the system where we just bag the shit out of them and not over-analyse it in the media.

The other thing; and I made the comment earlier (somewhat shit-stirringly at the time) but I can deadset guarantee there would have been no ref demotion this week if there were 8 games rather than 2.

Hiya OSM. That wasn't a leaked section of my master plan for the NRL 2017 rules changes or anything

But, I'm living in the real world. Where the media aren't going to stop any time soon, so I was just investigating random options. Add in a few beers, and, well, hey.... stuff just leaks out!

So, I went the other way with the idea. If we can't stop the media dissecting the shit out of everything, let's slap a penalty on the refs, same as the players. The goal would be to humanize them, not, well, demonize. "everyone makes mistakes - let's not make it a big thing. Here's your penalty".... on with business.

Probably a little too radical to be taken seriously, but I really don't know how we address all these different issues and get good outcomes: a balance between tech & refs; accuracy & speed; fans expectations vs the reality of what's possible.





Beers