A NEW video referee process will be trialled in this week’s Super League games as the RFL try to cut down the length of time decisions are taking.
Officials have come in for scrutiny at times this season over how long it takes for calls to be made after referral to their base in Wilmslow.
Phil Bentham, the head of match officials, has attributed this to video referees now manually choosing the camera angles they want to see.
Before Sky Sports began to broadcast every match last season, a television director would manage which angles were shown to the official.
And a similar process is going to be used again for all of this week’s games after a similar trial at Magic Weekend helped reduce the time taken to make calls.
“We’re looking at some improvements in the way that we get replays from Sky,” said Bentham.
“We’ve been working at Wilmslow and using what’s called the ‘ref box’. At the moment the referee chooses and selects their own replays.
“We feel that we were quicker under the system we used when I was video reffing, where the director who is really clued up on which might be the best angle (chooses).
“We did that at Magic and I felt our decision-making at Magic was a lot quicker and more robust.
“We’ll trial that this weekend, so you’ll see that the video ref is going through the director rather than controlling their own replays on the ‘ref box’.”
Bentham also admitted that video referees were sometimes “looking at the same angle too many times” when making a decision.
However, he believes other measures could also be taken to reduce the length of games, mooting the idea of a shot clock after which kickers would be unable to go for goal.
“One of the things that will go the Laws Committee is a shot clock on goal kicks, just to speed that up a little bit,” said Bentham.
“Rugby union brought that in and it’s been really successful within the game – they are done and dusted with kicks in one minute.
“We stop the clock after one minute 20 but most kickers are now taking up to two minutes, and that kills the atmosphere a little bit.”
