Referee Blunders.

Referee’s and touch judges will always make mistakes, it’s an area of our game that will always have problems.  However, it seems recently, they have made more mistakes than correct calls.  Referee’s are intimidated by a number of factors: the crowd, coaches and angry players.  If the crowd “boo’s” loudly enough for a penalty, it will more often then not be awarded, even when the replay shows no reason for it.  Additionally, in the Dragons vs. Roosters game last round, there was an incident where the ball was knocked over the sideline by a dragons player, Sailor then went right up to the touch judge, stared him in the face and pointed to Shaun Kenny – Dowall, the Roosters winger.  Based on this outburst from Sailor, the touchy ruled that the ball was knocked out by the Roosters and gave the ball to the dragons 20 meters out from the try line, and they scored.  This is just one example of referee blunders influencing the game.

It has been said before and I will say it again, referee’s feel intimidated by coaches who critisise every decision they come up with.  I think coaches need to back away from referee’s because they keep trying to influence their decision making and it’s not good for the game.  For example, coaches came together and said that the grapple tackle had to go.  However, now referee’s are ruling that any contact the looks too high is an automatic penalty.  Coaches are arguing that referee’s have got it wrong and that’s not what they meant…you can see the circle of blame that has begun.  Coaches need to back away and let the referee’s do their job because if they keep involving themselves, no one is going to be happy.