Madge Maguire announced as referee's coach

This got through to the keeper and a very low key Facbook announcement. It's almost like they don't want to answer the question "So what will Archer be doing ?"



Former Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire will overhaul the NRL's referee ranks next season, pushing Tony Archer into the new role of national referees director.

Former referees boss Greg McCallum broke the news via a Facebook post on Monday, claiming Maguire will step in as a referees coach.

It means Archer no longer has any input on the appointment of match or video officials each weekend.

After a year full of controversy and drama over refereeing decisions, the NRL hopes Maguire can clean up the mess.

He was recently linked to a move to Parramatta after his former club South Sydney stole ex-Eels assistant Peter Gentle to work under Anthony Seibold at Redfern.

Maguire will be joined by chief video reviewer Bernard Sutton on a three-man panel to appoint referees weekly.

Didn't know a better place to put this, so decided to put it here. I watched the first 25 minutes of the Broncos v Capra's trial live stream. There was no commentary, but it looked like there were 3 penalties against the player in possession, including 2 in the first 3 sets for either not playing the ball with their foot, or not getting to their feet to play the ball.

Seemed odd penalties given what's happened in the last few years. Made me thing the refs have decided this is something they're going to crack down on this year, so they decided to start doing it in the trials to give players notice that they are actually going to enforce it.

I haven't seen any other trials. Anyone seen any other games where this might be the case?

Dip wrote:Seemed odd penalties given what's happened in the last few years. Made me thing the refs have decided this is something they're going to crack down on this year, so they decided to start doing it in the trials to give players notice that they are actually going to enforce it.

They do that every year. 2 years ago it was walking off the mark.

Drop outs must be taken behind the line. How's that one going ?

its like they've given up on the more serious issues like wrestling slowing down the ruck, deliberate penalties inside the 20 and lack of use of the sin bin and thought "hey, whats a pet peeve the commentators mentioned that we could crack down on fairly easily"


i get players should be forced to use their foot, but if we're gonna see multiple penalties for 6 weeks before they get over it, it probably could have been something more worthwhile, no doubt the fifita's and kasiano's of the world will be punished a bit early on tho

Souths will win the penalty counts

leaguegod wrote:its like they've given up on the more serious issues like wrestling slowing down the ruck, deliberate penalties inside the 20 and lack of use of the sin bin and thought "hey, whats a pet peeve the commentators mentioned that we could crack down on fairly easily"


i get players should be forced to use their foot, but if we're gonna see multiple penalties for 6 weeks before they get over it, it probably could have been something more worthwhile, no doubt the fifita's and kasiano's of the world will be punished a bit early on tho

Hit the nail on the head.

I can't understand the commentators (and hence the more sheep-like fan's) obsession with this one - the effect on the game is deadset negligible.

Its def not negligible. It creates a much, much faster play the ball. Is it a bad thing? Im not sure. Its def not the biggest thing in the game, but it is a rule that is blatantly ignored.

Giving away penalties inside your own ten, not using the sin bin enough. The fucking wrestle. They are big things.

You are spot on LG

The wrestle is probably hard to police.... but surely you can blow the pea out of it over more things than an incorrect play the ball? If you're going to have Ref's Tourettes, surely you can add sin bins and laying all over the tackled player to the airswing play the ball?

Or am i over estimating the lung capacity of the average ref?

I know it wouldn't work, but if you added some kind of scoreboard punishment to any penalty inside your defensive 10, that'd make the "gift 2" a thing of the past. Imagine something like "if you give a penalty, and the opposition scores in the next set, it's an 8 point try"?

Pieman wrote:Its def not negligible. It creates a much, much faster play the ball. Is it a bad thing? Im not sure. Its def not the biggest thing in the game, but it is a rule that is blatantly ignored.

Giving away penalties inside your own ten, not using the sin bin enough. The fucking wrestle. They are big things.

You are spot on LG

Disagree. Even when I hear the commentators harp on about a dud play the ball and replay it over and over accordingly, it still doesn't look that bad IMO.
Incorrect yes but certainly not like a touch football dump.

I've said it before but a lot of the issues with the ruck, the wrestle and the play the ball would be solved with doing away with the 10m rule and reverting back to a 5m defensive line.

All these little (reactive) rule tweaks here and there to 'control the ruck' do nothing but force the coaches to slightly adapt their focus because the emphasis is still on a boring style of driving up the guts (and rightly so....because it is a winning tactic).

Compressing the defensive line would see less focus on ruck speed and all the other shit that goes with it.
IMO coaches would look to be more expansive and more creative as a result.

I'm going against the grain and actually think that it can have a very positive influence in the game. Currently the play the balls for any good old style side on tackles is too quick because they push up off the ball, and so the dummy half runs because it's about the only time the defence isn't set. And the defensive line can go as soon as the ball is on the ground because the guy who plays the ball doesn't use his foot, so the defensive line gets a head start more often than not (following a tackle slowed down with wrestle). If the player cannot push up off the ball and still has to keep control of the ball, then use his foot, it slows down the play the ball and has a defined point when the defensive line can start to run.

I actually think you can't significantly crack down on the wrestle without slowing down the play the ball first, because otherwise dummy halves will run 3-4 times a set, and I don't think we want that either. We need it all to work together - less wrestling, slower play the balls, and the defensive line not moving too early. This one crackdown is 2/3 of what what we're trying to achieve, which is seeing more ball playing football. That is with the caveat that it is policed properly, which is unlikely.

Premiership #22 coming up. In Madge we trust.

So on the eve of the season the clubs have been warned to comply on the most pressing issues in the game:

Captains must shake the refs hand before the game
Clubs must not comment on other clubs handling of HIA
No public comments to be made about refs
Must use the foot to play the ball