Skeletal tracking - forward passes

[Dunbar]

19 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Are you saying there is never an instance were a team were the champion team because they benefited from more incorrect decisions in key games?

Of course that is what I am saying.

And I don't even know what key games even means in these discussions.

Look at the Canberra Raiders last year.  Everyone talks about the crucial '6 again' decision in the Grand Final as if this moment was pivotal in their season.  And yet when you look at their whole year, they won or lost 13 games by 6 points or fewer.  And then they won the Qualifier by 2 points and the Preliminary Final by 6 points.

Every single one of those games would have been influenced by decisions the officials made - some with the help of the video ref and some without.  Some incorrect decisions would have benefited the Raiders and some would not.  The idea that the whole season can be distilled down to a few decisions in their favour or against is completely implausible.

Unless you are able to go through every single decision made in every single game and prove or disprove its accuracy you cannot say that a team were champions because of incorrect decisions in their favour.

My point is that the Raiders were a good enough team to make the Grand Final last year and they would have been with or without the video ref. 

[Padge]

4 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

It doesn't matter what he thinks he saw. What matters is that the decision is the correct one.

Only people with OCD expect everything to be 100% correct 100% of the time. Normal people expect that mistakes happen and that's life.

The tolerance for errors obviously gets smaller when you move towards life or death, sport is not life or death, it's a bit of fun watching some blokes enjoy themselves on a field. It evokes emotion but people recover from the highs and lows.

This quest for perfection is a quest to eternal misery.

[Trojan]

2 hours ago, Padge said:

Like many things it is based on the opinion of the ref, if the ref thinks he did it deliberately then he has the option of giving a penalty.

Most reffing decisions are down to the opinion of the ref, knock-ons, did the ball go forward in his opinion, high tackle, was it accidental or was intended, reefing the ball in the tackle were two players in the tackle or was the second man just standing close. The list goes on.

As I said, no controversy no crowd.   

[Padge]

3 minutes ago, Trojan said:

As I said, no controversy no crowd.   

I agree, sport gives people a chance to vent. If everything was 100% clinical then the social aspect of discussions amy as well be reduced to who is best at RL Manager on a games console.

Accept the flaws.

 

[bobbruce]

14 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I said this last decade to be fair and it hasn't arrived yet!

I compared it to Hawkeye but on a less technical scale.

That article makes it sound way too complicated. Referees use the hands to help judge whether it's gone forward in relation to the player. I don't AI would be able to do that (yet) because there are just so many variables (i.e. which way is the player facing?)

The rule is about the ball traveling forwards in relation to the player's forward motion. Just measure both of those and if there's an increase then it's forward.

It should just be a case of "how do we measure those 2 things with enough accuracy that it can be used in officiating?"

And how you factor in wind speed. 

[bobbruce]

13 hours ago, Padge said:

You would have to also measure wind speed at the precise time of the momentum of the ball accelerating past the speed of the passer.. 

Ball is blown or bounces forward If the ball is passed correctly but bounces forward or is blown forward by the wind, there is no infringement and play should continue.

Beat me to it. 

[fighting irish]

10 hours ago, Wholly Trinity said:

At the instant (milliseconds) it leaves the passers hands? 

I know some games are played at Batley, but that's one hell of a wind. 

If the player is passing the ball ''forward'', the ball will be accelerating towards the opposition goal line for a whole series of milliseconds before the player lets it go (as it passes across and in front of his body). When he lets the ball go, it will be travelling towards the opposition goal line, faster than the player himself. If it continues to accelerate after he's let it go, that acceleration is the effect of the wind. If the air is stagnant, then the ball will begin to decelerate (towards the opposition goal line) immediately it leaves the passers hands. So you'd have to separate the motion, into before and after it parts company with the passers hands. If you want to judge a ''forward'' pass then its the acceleration (towards the opposition goal line) up until the instant the player lets it go that counts. If he's accelerating it, its a forward pass and if he's decelerating it, its a backward pass. 

[Lowdesert]

9 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

That's a similar argument to "they'll never be happy." So because we can't achieve perfection, we shouldn't even bother got improvement?

I don't see how this will take away the 6 again rule?

Video referees won't necessarily have to look at the forward pass. The technology wouldn't be video-based, so what's the point sending it to the VR?

No, its not an argument but a fact.  Risk can never be fully taken out of life.  We can reduce it, but never eradicate something humans have control of or machinery that fails, electrical systems that short, catastrophic weather that causes chaos etc.

So, who will check for the forward pass?  Will a machine sound 'forward pass' over the tannoy?  

My comments regarding the 6 again rule were time based.  Gains made there, for the time the ball is in play and reduced stoppages will definitely be affected by any stoppages to consider the forward pass.

Our game isn't a game of perfect anyway.  Never will be.  IMO the NRL officials are trying to take away excuses that they will never find the answers to and secondly, because they have a budget figure that they know they can use.

 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

32 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

No, its not an argument but a fact.  Risk can never be fully taken out of life.  We can reduce it, but never eradicate something humans have control of or machinery that fails, electrical systems that short, catastrophic weather that causes chaos etc.

I don't understand how this is relevant? I've never argued risk would be completely taken out? If anything, you're backing up my point - we can reduce issues. Striving for perfection doesn't mean we will achieve it, but it does mean we will improve.

35 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

So, who will check for the forward pass?  Will a machine sound 'forward pass' over the tannoy?  

An assistant would obviously be in charge during real time (most likely the video ref, who won't be doing much during play). His job is to assist the referee, not explain to the fans. Referees are mic'ed up.

40 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

My comments regarding the 6 again rule were time based.  Gains made there, for the time the ball is in play and reduced stoppages will definitely be affected by any stoppages to consider the forward pass.

 

Devil's advocate - What if there were no stoppages, yet you were able to tell the referee nearly instantly?

The 6 again rule has nothing to do with forward passes. It's about letting the game flow when a transgression has been made. You need to determine a transgression has been made first.

45 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

Our game isn't a game of perfect anyway.  Never will be.  IMO the NRL officials are trying to take away excuses that they will never find the answers to and secondly, because they have a budget figure that they know they can use.

It's not about achieving perfection; it's about trying to get the fairest result possible. This argument has been used so many times. It's a fallacy. 

If we're never going to achieve perfection, and it should always be down to the referee, then why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

5 hours ago, bobbruce said:

And how you factor in wind speed. 

It's been discussed already.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

8 hours ago, Dunbar said:

Of course that is what I am saying.

And I don't even know what key games even means in these discussions.

Look at the Canberra Raiders last year.  Everyone talks about the crucial '6 again' decision in the Grand Final as if this moment was pivotal in their season.  And yet when you look at their whole year, they won or lost 13 games by 6 points or fewer.  And then they won the Qualifier by 2 points and the Preliminary Final by 6 points.

Every single one of those games would have been influenced by decisions the officials made - some with the help of the video ref and some without.  Some incorrect decisions would have benefited the Raiders and some would not.  The idea that the whole season can be distilled down to a few decisions in their favour or against is completely implausible.

Unless you are able to go through every single decision made in every single game and prove or disprove its accuracy you cannot say that a team were champions because of incorrect decisions in their favour.

My point is that the Raiders were a good enough team to make the Grand Final last year and they would have been with or without the video ref. 

The argument seems to be that referees make mistakes, they're about equal for both sides over the course of the season, so why bother trying to reduce this?

Again, so why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

7 hours ago, Padge said:

I agree, sport gives people a chance to vent. If everything was 100% clinical then the social aspect of discussions amy as well be reduced to who is best at RL Manager on a games console.

Accept the flaws.

There will still be flaws, just not as many.

And again, if this is the case, why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

8 hours ago, Padge said:

Only people with OCD expect everything to be 100% correct 100% of the time. Normal people expect that mistakes happen and that's life.

The tolerance for errors obviously gets smaller when you move towards life or death, sport is not life or death, it's a bit of fun watching some blokes enjoy themselves on a field. It evokes emotion but people recover from the highs and lows.

This quest for perfection is a quest to eternal misery.

It's not about being 100% perfect, it's about striving for it so you can improve. You really aren't distinguishing three difference.

Every improvement gained on the journey is a positive. You're only miserable if you look at the final goal - it's growth mindset over fixed mindset.

What sport is to you isn't the same for everyone. Sport is a career for many. How their career pans out affects their lives and livelihoods. It's not just about people in the stands paying a few bob to be entertained, it's about the people who literally work their lives in the game.

[Lowdesert]

25 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I don't understand how this is relevant? I've never argued risk would be completely taken out? If anything, you're backing up my point - we can reduce issues. Striving for perfection doesn't mean we will achieve it, but it does mean we will improve.

An assistant would obviously be in charge during real time (most likely the video ref, who won't be doing much during play). His job is to assist the referee, not explain to the fans. Referees are mic'ed up.

Devil's advocate - What if there were no stoppages, yet you were able to tell the referee nearly instantly?

The 6 again rule has nothing to do with forward passes. It's about letting the game flow when a transgression has been made. You need to determine a transgression has been made first.

It's not about achieving perfection; it's about trying to get the fairest result possible. This argument has been used so many times. It's a fallacy. 

If we're never going to achieve perfection, and it should always be down to the referee, then why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

The technology is there now, to identify the forward pass, but without the proposed accuracy this new system will bring.  Using that existing technology with a rule change on this would be the easiest thing to do imo.  Allow the Bunker (or whoever) official to review forward passes.  Nonetheless, these things still take time out of play - as is proved game after game, when VR/Bunker persons review and continue to review.  

Quick decisions do not always work.  As we recently saw in an NRL game where a clear grounding of the ball in TIG was missed.

My comment regarding the 6 again rule was that of time in play will then be reduced further by another system of checking.  It has to be, even if we reduce that time to a few seconds.  The flow and impetus is affected.

 

 

[Dunbar]

3 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

The argument seems to be that referees make mistakes, they're about equal for both sides over the course of the season, so why bother trying to reduce this?

Again, so why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

Well, not really.

I would be very happy to see the referee performances improve and when you look at the their performances compared to previous decades I think on the whole they are much better.

My view is that I do not think the video technology has added more to the game than it has taken away and on the whole I would be happy to tolerate a few mistakes rather than have the video ref check every try or the captain's challenge which I do not think add value to the sport.  The captain's challenge in particular goes against the logic of trying to improve the accuracy of the decisions as it is limited to one per game and lost if a challenge is unsuccessful. 

Surely the logical conclusion is that if we want accuracy of decisions is paramount then the video ref should check every knock on and penalty decision to ensure that the correct call was made otherwise we will be tolerating inaccuracy. If the technology is there then why not ensure we get every single decision 100% correct in case there is a a terrible injustice?

[DavidM]

3 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

And again, if this is the case, why do we bother with assistants? Get rid of the touch judges and in goal judges. Let it all be about the referee in the middle and save a few bob.

It’s the overarching , hovering presence of technology that leads to the argument about getting rid of touchies , and who knows referees to if you like . Why save a few bob .... Keep touchies , get in goal touchies , get rid of the VR comfort blanket which is smothering them in terms of how they officiate ,  and get them back MAKING DECISIONS which is why they signed up and what they did all their career until they reach the top level ! And in doing this you don’t save a few bob but a lot of bob . The deeper we go down the futuristic tech world of officiating the more we get away from how the game was and should be and more of a mess we get into. We strive for something we can never achieve while there’s human involvement , and the positives just don’t outweigh the detrimental effects on the game . Refs don’t make decisions because they don’t have to and they don’t want to , I think the VR ironically is not helping them at all . It’s big brother over them . They’re shackled by it .Get rid , free them up to do the job they’re there to do and they probably want to do. 

[TBone]

Quote

What is Skeletal Tracking

1.

A model used to represent the human body as number of joints representing body parts such as head, neck, shoulders, and arms. Learn more in: A Comparative Study of Machine Learning Techniques for Gesture Recognition Using Kinect

IGI

What is Skeletal Tracking  - VR Soldier

Skeletal Tracking  - intel

Seems to be more about body than ball

[DavidM]

Did you see the kerfuffle around the Sheffield Utd ‘ ghost goal ‘ ? There were 7 cameras which failed to send the electronic signal to the refs super duper watch telling him it was a goal .... because the players and the post were in the way . I thought there was an irony there somewhere . 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

54 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Well, not really.

I would be very happy to see the referee performances improve and when you look at the their performances compared to previous decades I think on the whole they are much better.

My view is that I do not think the video technology has added more to the game than it has taken away and on the whole I would be happy to tolerate a few mistakes rather than have the video ref check every try or the captain's challenge which I do not think add value to the sport.  The captain's challenge in particular goes against the logic of trying to improve the accuracy of the decisions as it is limited to one per game and lost if a challenge is unsuccessful. 

Surely the logical conclusion is that if we want accuracy of decisions is paramount then the video ref should check every knock on and penalty decision to ensure that the correct call was made otherwise we will be tolerating inaccuracy. If the technology is there then why not ensure we get every single decision 100% correct in case there is a a terrible injustice?

It's not about getting EVERY DECISION 100% at the sacrifice of the flow of the game. The argument seems to have been extrapolated to thinking this is about stopping every incident in the game. It's not how we use technology now and it's not how we're suggesting using it in future.

I completely agree that the flow of the game is important. Would never argue differently. If there's a natural break in play to quickly review key incidents, or if there is technology that does it in an instant, I don't see an issue.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

37 minutes ago, TBone said:

IGI

What is Skeletal Tracking  - VR Soldier

Skeletal Tracking  - intel

Seems to be more about body than ball

Oh we know, but it just seems a long way around a simple problem, which is just tracking the ball's motion forward!

[Tonka]

12 hours ago, Padge said:

This quest for perfection is a quest to eternal misery.

I've been trying to tell my wife that for about 20 years...

[Wellsy4HullFC]

1 hour ago, DavidM said:

It’s the overarching , hovering presence of technology that leads to the argument about getting rid of touchies , and who knows referees to if you like . Why save a few bob .... Keep touchies , get in goal touchies , get rid of the VR comfort blanket which is smothering them in terms of how they officiate ,  and get them back MAKING DECISIONS which is why they signed up and what they did all their career until they reach the top level ! And in doing this you don’t save a few bob but a lot of bob . The deeper we go down the futuristic tech world of officiating the more we get away from how the game was and should be and more of a mess we get into. We strive for something we can never achieve while there’s human involvement , and the positives just don’t outweigh the detrimental effects on the game . Refs don’t make decisions because they don’t have to and they don’t want to , I think the VR ironically is not helping them at all . It’s big brother over them . They’re shackled by it .Get rid , free them up to do the job they’re there to do and they probably want to do. 

But why have touch judges? They stop the play to talk to the ref, often ignore everything anyway, get decisions wrong often. Just let the referee get on with it, surely?

Referees do need to make decisions. They send a decision up to the video ref.

There are a lot closed mindsets on this issue though. "We can't achieve it, so what's the point?" "Aiming for perfection makes you miserable." "It's impossible."

I'll say it AGAIN - it's not about achieving perfection; it's about improving to get towards it. Every improvement on that journey is a positive. Looking at it from the negative angle helps no one and stops progression towards improvement. Top sportsmen don't think like that, do they?

[Dunbar]

10 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

It's not about getting EVERY DECISION 100% at the sacrifice of the flow of the game. The argument seems to have been extrapolated to thinking this is about stopping every incident in the game. It's not how we use technology now and it's not how we're suggesting using it in future.

I completely agree that the flow of the game is important. Would never argue differently. If there's a natural break in play to quickly review key incidents, or if there is technology that does it in an instant, I don't see an issue.

The argument has been extrapolated to say that every decision needs to be checked because the rationale you stated for having the video ref is to irradicate the injustices that come with making the wrong decisions.  We cannot accept some decisions as wrong and waive them away while saying that others are injustices... that is illogical.

If we want every single pass validated as lawful by ball tracking or skeletal technology then that will improve accuracy but it is not for me.

[Tonka]

If it got to the point where the tech could accurately establish a forward pass (taking into account all factors) and say a beep went off in the ref's ear and he called the forward pass off that, I could maybe get behind it.

But really I think they are pretty well reffed as it is.  The other thing that rarely gets talked about is whether there is any prejudice to the defence from the forward pass.  To give an example, a player receives the ball passed 2 inches forward, he then side steps two people, busts a tackle and runs 50 metres to score under the posts.  In that instance it would have made no difference whether the pass was 2 inches forward or not.  But it's "no try".  I think a lot of passes ruled forward are very marginal and make little difference - so I'm equally not bothered if a few get missed.  99% of passes are still ok.  I know there's no test of prejudice to the defence and I'd never advocate it, but it's why I don't get too hung up on it.

 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

6 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

The argument has been extrapolated to say that every decision needs to be checked because the rationale you stated for having the video ref is to irradicate the injustices that come with making the wrong decisions.  We cannot accept some decisions as wrong and waive them away while saying that others are injustices... that is illogical.

If we want every single pass validated as lawful by ball tracking or skeletal technology then that will improve accuracy but it is not for me.

If ball tracking technology can do that and it's as close to instant as possible (which is what I've argued) then I don't see an issue.

The flow of the game is important. It's about finding a balance that achieves one without affecting the other (or affecting the other a slightly as possible).

The logic you've gone down (which is a fair argument) is the reason why I also think there should be a captain's call when it comes to reviewing decisions. Puts it in their hands then.