Referee bashing-get it stopped!

[Big Red Keev]

2 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

I think you make a valid point.

The referee is an integral part of the game. Occasionally, like coaches and players, they have a blinder. Conversely,  like coaches and players they are not immune from having a bad game and as such public discussion is appropriate. Keeping some proportion is the key.

Thanks mate, i'm glad you understood my point.

I'm not suggesting that we should be able to burn effigy's of referees outside stadiums. I just dont see why its is wrong to criticize referees publicly if they make a a poor decision or have a bad game, even if that is subjective. Would they ban coaches from praising referees publicly? If not then they should be able to say what they like as long as it doesnt become personal.

[whatmichaelsays]

4 hours ago, Big Red Keev said:

"How does it help them interpret things, that they thought at the time were correct, differently?" If it is pointed out where they have made a mistake or misintepreted the rules then surely this will help them to improve an area of there performance and hopefully make fewer mistakes this is exactly what a referees assessor does. 

With regards to being "Obsessesd" with match officials im pretty sure this is the first time i have ever commented on a referee performance on this forum ever. All I said was they shouldnt be immune from public criticism. Surely that is reasonable?

How many cases do you think are down to referees "misinterpreting the rules"? The referees know more about the rules than most fans in the stadium put together. 

The issue with intepretation is not one of rules, but of the situation. The referee has split seconds to assess what they see and determine, to the best of their knowledge and ability, what has happened. When a ball spills out of a collision, for example, the referee has to interpret whether that ball came lose due to an intervention from a defender(s), or because of a loose carry by the ball carrier. In that situation, the officials know the rules - what they don't (often) know with absolute certainty is why the ball came loose, so they make an interpretation and call based on that. Sometimes that interpretation will be right, sometimes it will be wrong. 

That's just one example of the 'non binary' decisions officials have to make and every single one of those situations is different so again, with respect, I'm not seeing what "negative reinforcement" does to improve the situation further. How can you make a referee "publically accountable" for a decision like that? 

The "obsessed" remark wasn't aimed at you personally. It's aimed at the general culture that RL seems to have towards match officials. 

I'm open to the idea that we can debate how to improve the standard of officiating. I just don't see how public accountability makes a productive contribution to achieving that goal - but I can see how it can be very unproductive.

[Click]

11 minutes ago, Big Red Keev said:

Chairmen, Coaches and players do criticize there peers openly and in the media fairly regularly. They also criticize the governing body. The only people who are apparently off limits are the referees and touch judges.

 

When do charmen, coaches and players come out and opening criticise their peers? "The boys haven't played well today" is not critising their peers in the same degree as critising an individual.

[costa]

16 hours ago, DOGFATHER said:

 

Sorry, but Kendall is not a good ref, but he is not on his own. He was poor when he started refereeing, which could be counter argued with he lacked experience. But what is the excuse now he is experienced and he hasn't improved?

However, I'm not sure his lack of improvement is his fault though.

Personally, I think the people who are getting paid to coach and improve him and the other officials, also have a lot to answer for. The interpretations and some of rules do not help the ref's either. Who knows, with the right coaching, maybe Kendall will make a good ref eventually.

Chris Kendall has refereed a Super League Grand Final. 

Chris Kendall has refereed at a World Cup.

Chris Kendall has refereed a GB Lions series.

Chris Kendall has refereed a World Club Challenge. 

Chris Kendall has touch judged a World Cup Final, a Challenge Cup Final and a Super League Grand Final. 

How many players would take a career involving those games? All of them!

To say that Chris Kendall is not a good referee is a very silly thing to say indeed.

[Big Red Keev]

2 minutes ago, Click said:

When do charmen, coaches and players come out and opening criticise their peers? "The boys haven't played well today" is not critising their peers in the same degree as critising an individual.

how many examples would you like. The chairman of Hull KR recently publicly criticized his counter part at Catalan. Brian McDermott at Toronto criticizes the governing body fairly regularly. He was also critical of Marwan Koukash when he was involved at Salford. The Hull FC chairmen criticized his counterpart at Toronto publicly also recently. In terms of coaches criticizing players, well as has been mentioned they tend to leave there own players alone, which is a fair point but not always the case. Opposing players however, off the top of my head without quoting endless examples coaches who i remember publicly criticizing opposition players specifically. Watson, Powell, McDermott, McNamara, Smith and Radford. It happens all the time, and personally as long as it doesnt become personal I am fine with it, and I dont see why one group in particular should be immune from it.

[DOGFATHER]

14 minutes ago, costa said:

Chris Kendall has refereed a Super League Grand Final. 

Chris Kendall has refereed at a World Cup.

Chris Kendall has refereed a GB Lions series.

Chris Kendall has refereed a World Club Challenge. 

Chris Kendall has touch judged a World Cup Final, a Challenge Cup Final and a Super League Grand Final. 

How many players would take a career involving those games? All of them!

To say that Chris Kendall is not a good referee is a very silly thing to say indeed.

That is a bit of strange argument Costa. We have a drastic shortage of refs in the country, so is it any wonder he is selected for these high profile games, when the competition is so limited?

I might be the best ski jumper in the south Bradford region. Just because there are no alternatives, doesn't necessarily make me any good.

[costa]

1 hour ago, DOGFATHER said:

That is a bit of strange argument Costa. We have a drastic shortage of refs in the country, so is it any wonder he is selected for these high profile games, when the competition is so limited?

I might be the best ski jumper in the south Bradford region. Just because there are no alternatives, doesn't necessarily make me any good.

Chris Kendall is competing with and often beating the much-lauded NRL referees, hence his international appointments. 

We do not have a drastic shortage of referees in the UK; I believe there are currently 10-11 full time match officials at Red Hall, battling it out for six SL games each week. If you follow the referee appointments, as I do, you will see that on any given week there are at least three full time referees plying their trade in the Championship. This means referees are accountable for their performances, as they can be and are dropped for bad games. 

Perhaps you preferred it when we had 5-6 referees who did every top level match?

It's worth mentioning that in addition to Kendall, we have Hicks, Thaler and Child who have themselves refereed around eight finals, so you actually have quite a mature and experienced group of refs at the moment. 

[daz39]

2 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Whilst I understand this sentiment, it really doesn't mean an awful lot. 

Making referees "publically accountable" doesn't actually address the root cause of whatever it is that referees have done wrong in the first place. Every referee, in every play in every game, makes a series of decisions based on how they interpret what they see at the time - it really is as simple as that. 

Sometimes, they will interpret a situation incorrectly. Sometimes they will not see an incident. Neither of these issues will ever be solved by "making referees accountable". 

You can however mitigate those issues by making the job of the officials easier, either by providing assistance through technology or by adding more human resources, as they have in the NRL. Again, neither of those issues are solved by "making referees accountable". 

So what people want when they say "make referees accountable" is not to improve the standard of officiating or to make the job of officiating easier, but to instead give players, fans and coaches a human punchbag on which to vent their frustrations and deflect their own failings onto. Ian Watson made a big point in his press conference on Saturday about his meeting request with Steve Ganson, but he seemed much less willing to talk about the various missed tackles, handling errors and bad reads made by his players - because those issues fall on him and if his players can't pass, catch, tackle or read a line, then it puts his job at risk. 

If we do have problems with the standard of match officials, we'll never solve this by bullying or shaming them into improving.  

Possibly one of the best posts i've ever read !!

[daz39]

It all starts usually on a Tuesday when the referees appointments are posted on social media usually with a comment along the lines of 'oh ffs' 'not that clown' that's us not winning' etc, so straight away the ref bashers are at it and they probably spend the entire week upto gameday laying into the ref for their game until the actual game where in their minds he's already lost them the game and had a stinker and is going to perform poorly so therefore he gets hammered when their perceptions seem to be realistic.

This carries on after the game too where no matter what happened it was HIS fault their team lost and they then take to social media to hound, threaten and abuse the official.

I'm not saying refs shouldn't be criticised if they've missed something obvious or made a blatant error but are you expecting him to get 100% of decisions he has to make in usually a split second correct? you can't and he won't that human nature but it doesn't mean he did it on purpose or intentionally to harm your team.

How many blatant obvious mistakes does a ref make in a game? and i'm not talking about ones where they were at best debateable i'm talking ignoring a knock on in the act of scoring a try or a punch to the head he reckons he didn't see - i'll tell you, less than 1 but yet a large percentage of fans think he deserves to be abused and bullied cos of the perception around him

[DOGFATHER]

1 hour ago, costa said:

Chris Kendall is competing with and often beating the much-lauded NRL referees, hence his international appointments. 

We do not have a drastic shortage of referees in the UK; I believe there are currently 10-11 full time match officials at Red Hall, battling it out for six SL games each week. If you follow the referee appointments, as I do, you will see that on any given week there are at least three full time referees plying their trade in the Championship. This means referees are accountable for their performances, as they can be and are dropped for bad games. 

Perhaps you preferred it when we had 5-6 referees who did every top level match?

It's worth mentioning that in addition to Kendall, we have Hicks, Thaler and Child who have themselves refereed around eight finals, so you actually have quite a mature and experienced group of refs at the moment. 

I happen to know Rob and Ben quite well. Ben, in his own words is not well liked by the powers that be, so he won't be selected fo many high profile games, because he speaks his mind. Child has no idea once a game gets nasty, and still has the Catalan match hanging over him, so won't be selected. Hicks was under a bit of a cloud since the Warrington incident last season. Who are the other 7 or 8 UK based full timers with a decent amount of experience? I can only think of Moore and Mikalauskas (sp?) and neither have much experience. Jack Smith was FT, but isn't any more. 

[LeeF]

3 hours ago, DoubleD said:

When do coaches publicly criticise players? Almost never. They protect them. But they’re happy to take free reign at refs, who have far less impact on the outcome of the game and also aren’t in a position to defend themselves 

Excellent points.

What you correct detail is basically workplace bullying 

[LeeF]

2 hours ago, Big Red Keev said:

Opposition players? then fairly regularly. Referees have opportunity to speak to the media, they choose not too. In fairness to them, why would they rock the boat they know next week they will be officiating regardless of performance.

I never said coaches or anyone for that matter should have free reign to say whatever they like, I said if the criticism is justified there shouldnt be anything preventing them from saying it publicly. If you consider that unreasonable thats up to you.

Referees do NOT have the option of speaking to the media unless it has been agreed, in writing,  beforehand 

It's in the Operational Rules

[LeeF]

58 minutes ago, costa said:

Chris Kendall is competing with and often beating the much-lauded NRL referees, hence his international appointments. 

We do not have a drastic shortage of referees in the UK; I believe there are currently 10-11 full time match officials at Red Hall, battling it out for six SL games each week. If you follow the referee appointments, as I do, you will see that on any given week there are at least three full time referees plying their trade in the Championship. This means referees are accountable for their performances, as they can be and are dropped for bad games. 

Perhaps you preferred it when we had 5-6 referees who did every top level match?

It's worth mentioning that in addition to Kendall, we have Hicks, Thaler and Child who have themselves refereed around eight finals, so you actually have quite a mature and experienced group of refs at the moment. 

The bit in bold is 100% accurate 

There are even part time match officials who do SL games

[Big Red Keev]

3 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Referees do NOT have the option of speaking to the media unless it has been agreed, in writing,  beforehand 

It's in the Operational Rules

So they could then if they chose to and sought written permission?

[WakefieldCityLoyal]

38 minutes ago, daz39 said:

It all starts usually on a Tuesday when the referees appointments are posted on social media usually with a comment along the lines of 'oh ffs' 'not that clown' that's us not winning' etc, so straight away the ref bashers are at it and they probably spend the entire week upto gameday laying into the ref for their game until the actual game where in their minds he's already lost them the game and had a stinker and is going to perform poorly so therefore he gets hammered when their perceptions seem to be realistic.

This carries on after the game too where no matter what happened it was HIS fault their team lost and they then take to social media to hound, threaten and abuse the official.

I'm not saying refs shouldn't be criticised if they've missed something obvious or made a blatant error but are you expecting him to get 100% of decisions he has to make in usually a split second correct? you can't and he won't that human nature but it doesn't mean he did it on purpose or intentionally to harm your team.

How many blatant obvious mistakes does a ref make in a game? and i'm not talking about ones where they were at best debateable i'm talking ignoring a knock on in the act of scoring a try or a punch to the head he reckons he didn't see - i'll tell you, less than 1 but yet a large percentage of fans think he deserves to be abused and bullied cos of the perception around him

When I see James Child is reffing our game I think FFS.

 

[Havenwarrior]

Until all players start respecting the Officials during the game, we will get nowhere.

They don’t have these issues in RU, were the officials are treat with respect.

All clubs have persistent offenders, who are trying to Ref the game, and questioning every decision. 
 

HW

[DavidM]

Steve Ganson is the boss still I believe ? I’ve hardly ever heard from him , I think he was on backchat once . In the NRL the refs bosses are quite open and transparent weekly , maybe we should hear from Ganson a bit more with open explanation and analysis of decisions , that may help rather than putting it on individual refs

[LeeF]

13 minutes ago, Big Red Keev said:

So they could then if they chose to and sought written permission?

And it was granted which in the Ian Watson case and others it probably wouldn’t be given

The match officials basically do not have the opportunity to return the favour to the likes of Ian Watson, Daryl Powell etc.
 

Just imagine the uproar & outrage if they caller out every error made by players during a game or where a coach said something wrong. The press conference would last about 30 minutes before any questions

[LeeF]

13 minutes ago, Havenwarrior said:

Until all players start respecting the Officials during the game, we will get nowhere.

They don’t have these issues in RU, were the officials are treat with respect.

All clubs have persistent offenders, who are trying to Ref the game, and questioning every decision. 
 

HW

And that attitude comes from the coaches who send their players out to cheat

[LeeF]

12 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Steve Ganson is the boss still I believe ? I’ve hardly ever heard from him , I think he was on backchat once . In the NRL the refs bosses are quite open and transparent weekly , maybe we should hear from Ganson a bit more with open explanation and analysis of decisions , that may help rather than putting it on individual refs

Correct and for all the criticism his predecessor got Stuart Cummings was a lot better at giving his match officials support in public etc.

I have said it before Ganson was completely the wrong person to take over. His lack of man management skills are clear to all. 

[DOGFATHER]

21 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Correct and for all the criticism his predecessor got Stuart Cummings was a lot better at giving his match officials support in public etc.

I have said it before Ganson was completely the wrong person to take over. His lack of man management skills are clear to all. 

100% agree with you. 

[hunsletgreenandgold]

39 minutes ago, Havenwarrior said:

Until all players start respecting the Officials during the game, we will get nowhere.

They don’t have these issues in RU, were the officials are treat with respect.

All clubs have persistent offenders, who are trying to Ref the game, and questioning every decision. 
 

HW

I agree - we're sadly more closely aligned to football in terms of how treat match officials and as much as we scoff at the other code for many things, this is one area where we should be following their lead. 

[Big Red Keev]

34 minutes ago, LeeF said:

And it was granted which in the Ian Watson case and others it probably wouldn’t be given

The match officials basically do not have the opportunity to return the favour to the likes of Ian Watson, Daryl Powell etc.
 

Just imagine the uproar & outrage if they caller out every error made by players during a game or where a coach said something wrong. The press conference would last about 30 minutes before any questions

How do we know it wouldn't be given? Do we know if they ask? What do you mean by uproar anyway, what you are describing is basically what the media, fans, coaches and chairmen do now I dont believe that a referee pointing it out would be that much different. Especially if it meant that they were no longer beyond reproach. You are making a distinction that doesnt exist.

[LeeF]

4 minutes ago, Big Red Keev said:

How do we know it wouldn't be given? Do we know if they ask? What do you mean by uproar anyway, what you are describing is basically what the media, fans, coaches and chairmen do now I dont believe that a referee pointing it out would be that much different. Especially if it meant that they were no longer beyond reproach. You are making a distinction that doesnt exist.

I’m not going to name specific names but the people on this forum who know me personally will vouch that I know a number of both past & present match officials and I can 100% guarantee that some would have liked to, in the past, respond to coaches unwarranted criticism but have not been allowed. 
 

Since nobody has spoken out it is reasonable to assume that permission has not been and probably never will be given.

With regards the uproar that is very simple. The bullies i.e. the coaches & players in these instances won’t like be on the receiving end of being shown that they are in the wrong and that they make substantially more errors per match than any match official. Errors that do cost matches

[daz39]

2 hours ago, WakefieldCityLoyal said:

When I see James Child is reffing our game I think FFS.

 

There ya go, that's my point, judged him already before the game based on reputation and perception.

He could have the best game ever get everything 100% correct and your team could win 80-0 but you'd alrady decided 5-6 days before the game it was a negative?