Refereeing meeting today - all change!

[Lowdesert]

Fighting through the adverts……

Referees will look to show more caution when brandishing cards after the RFL’s disciplinary chiefs met Super League head coaches for urgent talks about the state of the game.

The start to the new season has been dominated by the governing body’s crackdown on foul play with a vast swath of yellow and red cards in the opening six rounds. Although supporting the RFL’s bid to reduce injuries and clean up the sport, coaches and players alike have felt they have gone too far with many fans also becoming increasingly disillusioned.

What may before have warranted a penalty has now, in 2022, often seen sin-binnings or even dismissals. Coaches have become increasingly vocal about how the heavy-handed use of cards is ruining the spectacle of the sport. However, they held positive talks with RFL’s match review panel chief Paul Cullen, head of match officials Steve Ganson and director of operations and legal Robert Hicks for over an hour on Wednesday to discuss the hot topic.

The Daily Mirror understands that, especially after Mahe Fonua’s farcical yellow card for Castleford last Thursday, all parties agreed it is crucial for the sport’s image that more games, if at all possible, see 13 v 13. Although coaches have been reminded of the need for continued work on players’ tackle technique, from hereon in, some downgrading on on-field offences will come into play. 

For example, if referees feel a foul could warrant a yellow card or a penalty, they will err on the side of caution and award a penalty. Likewise, where there is doubt between red and yellow, officials will be encouraged to show yellow in a bid to dampen the furore.

It is understood there was plenty of common ground met during the meeting as both parties sought to find a positive way forward and it was noted that many players have already adjusted to the changes made in the off-season.l  my

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/super-league-referees-start-erring-26549811

[Jughead]

Just now, Lowdesert said:

For example, if referees feel a foul could warrant a yellow card or a penalty, they will err on the side of caution and award a penalty. Likewise, where there is doubt between red and yellow, officials will be encouraged to show yellow in a bid to dampen the furore.

This is more bonkers than some of the cards we’ve seen issued. 

[M j M]

Jesus how amateurish this whole thing is. It smacks of bad leadership from top to bottom of the disciplinary/referee dept at the RFL.

Why wasn't everyone involved like this before the season started? 

Why was it so seemingly last minute and badly communicated?

How can a radical reassessment like this possibly be spun as anything other than that the existing approach was wrong or a failure?

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

No doubt it'll go completely the other way now.... 

[Dunbar]

There is always the option, and hear me out on this one, to let the referees just use their common sense and referee the game as they see fit.

[Damien]

There's a lot of nonsense in that and the entire process of these changes just sounds like a shambles. The game in this country lacks leadership in just about every area.

[DavidM]

25 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

There is always the option, and hear me out on this one, to let the referees just use their common sense and referee the game as they see fit.

Thats been squeezed  out of them in both hemispheres in the search for perfection and consistency … over recent years

Edited March 24 by DavidM

[DavidM]

1 hour ago, M j M said:

Why wasn't everyone involved like this before the season started? 

Well quite . Who’d have thunk we’d end up here ? 

[Phil W]

Surely it's a case of the players needing to adapt. Instead the clubs have gone moaning and I feel for the referee's here they've been officiating as they've told to and now they have to change.

[Josef K]

Is Ganson the man to be head of official’s ?. 

[yipyee]

Its interesting as only last season the sin bin seemed a distant past. This year its being used a little too much...

[gingerjon]

9 hours ago, Dunbar said:

There is always the option, and hear me out on this one, to let the referees just use their common sense and referee the game as they see fit.

Because fans love that.

[gingerjon]

10 hours ago, M j M said:

Why wasn't everyone involved like this before the season started? 

I'd be willing to bet that they were but thought that it either wouldn't impact them or that it would be like all of these things and vanish after about five seconds of the first game.

[LeeF]

So the coaches have admitted that they can’t coach their players to play within the laws of the game so have insisted that the Match Officials stop fully enforcing the laws. Brilliant 

[LeeF]

9 hours ago, Josef K said:

Is Ganson the man to be head of official’s ?. 

Mr Invisible? Your question deserves a thread of its own

[M j M]

2 minutes ago, LeeF said:

So the coaches have admitted that they can’t coach their players to play within the laws of the game so have insisted that the Match Officials stop fully enforcing the laws. Brilliant 

There were some decisions that even the most pro-clampdown advocate, and I largely include myself in that group, could justify. We have to find the right answer and at the moment they definitely haven't. 

In getting at the genuinely late and high or dangerous tackles we've somehow swept up all sorts of frankly trivial stuff into cards and bans. That was never the intent and the fact that it's been implemented that way reflects a catastrophic failure somewhere at the RFL. 

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, LeeF said:

So the coaches have admitted that they can’t coach their players to play within the laws of the game so have insisted that the Match Officials stop fully enforcing the laws. Brilliant 

Bingo.

It's pretty typical of rugby league in this country. Something has been shown to be difficult or awkward to achieve so it's been given up on.

Add it to the big pile of everything else.

[Davc1h]

1 hour ago, LeeF said:

So the coaches have admitted that they can’t coach their players to play within the laws of the game so have insisted that the Match Officials stop fully enforcing the laws. Brilliant 

Whilst i agree with what you say in principle, a couple of the recent decisions, the players were within the laws of the game and still got punished. I am thinking the Fonua and McGilvray(spelling) incidents.

[LeeF]

1 hour ago, Davc1h said:

Whilst i agree with what you say in principle, a couple of the recent decisions, the players were within the laws of the game and still got punished. I am thinking the Fonua and McGilvray(spelling) incidents.

That’s 2 recent decisions out of how many? I can to an extent understand getting the Fonua wrong as there was the attacker’s head & neck flexed backwards. The McGillvary one was in a non televised match so 1 view etc etc.

The other high profile decisions which have caused outrage are down to players and coaches only. In fact you could argue the MOs were not strong enough due to the lack of red cards but yes let’s blame the messenger

[Dave T]

The messaging in that is rubbish. How that is explained is amateur to say the least. 

The issue here is a small number of yellow cards that were harsh. They should be the focus. 

I haven't seen a red card that should have been yellow this year, and the amount of bans dished out suggests we could have seen more reds. 

[Tommygilf]

The reality is that 12 or 11 vs 13 is rubbish and there have been a lot of games where one or both sides haven't had 13 men on the pitch.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

The reality is that 12 or 11 vs 13 is rubbish and there have been a lot of games where one or both sides haven't had 13 men on the pitch.

We should definitely allow foul and dangerous play to go effectively unpunished then.

It really is the only thing that makes sense.

There's no way we should expect coaches and players to follow any so-called rules.

[Marauder]

15 hours ago, M j M said:

Jesus how amateurish this whole thing is. It smacks of bad leadership from top to bottom of the disciplinary/referee dept at the RFL.

Why wasn't everyone involved like this before the season started? 

Why was it so seemingly last minute and badly communicated?

How can a radical reassessment like this possibly be spun as anything other than that the existing approach was wrong or a failure?

It smacks of a leadership out of touch with the reality of the beast that has been spawned from constant rule changes designed to speed up a game.

I fear for the amateur game, fitness levels are lower, skill sets are lower and reaction times are lower but we'll still have many overweight guys with a whistle mimicking their super league counterparts.

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

We should definitely allow foul and dangerous play to go effectively unpunished then.

It really is the only thing that makes sense.

There's no way we should expect coaches and players to follow any so-called rules.

Punished accordingly is different from unpunished.

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Punished accordingly is different from unpunished.

If the punishment is focused on keeping the game the offence occurs in even - because, again, we have a game-wide flinch any time we fall short of a match being a classic - then it's heading in that direction.