How are you going to fund the few sensible suggestions?
This is the hardest of your questions to answer.

You don't seem to appreciate what makes a forward pass, having lines will make no difference.
I would change the rule of a forward pass, and I also don't think the refs rule the forward pass to the letter. It should be as simple as the ball has to travel backwards, not leave the hands backwards. There would be no debate then.

How do you prove a decision wrong when the evidence is not clear?
Ref's call. NRL hand it back, then the ref has to take the gut decision. If the evidence is there, then the right decision will come. I'm assuming you meant the video ref comment?

What do you mean by more responsibility? If you watched the outstanding performance from Child on Friday you could clearly hear his communication with the linesman.
The linesmen do not do enough. I appreciate they communicate, but you see elbows in faces right in front of them and they turn I blind eye. I have seen linesmen shrug their shoulders when the ref has looked at them to see if a ball has gone backwards from a fumble (not in a HKR game too I may add). I just think they should be involved in the game more.

What do you mean by using the sin bin correctly?
I am referring to refs using "on report" as a punishment to an incident. I always related "on report" to an incident missed like a potential bite, or a cheap shot in a tackle, or if a player claims something happened. The ref would put the incident on report. Now, if there is a high tackle, or a shoulder charge, the ref puts it on report. That player should have 10 minutes if the ref thinks that the incident was bad enough to go on report. Also, a player doesn't need to be put on report to be cited post match. It kind of makes putting a player on report insignificant.

I have watched thousands of games & have never seen an official win or lose a game alone.
I have also watched thousands of games, and I have not seen an official win or lose a game. That isn't what it says.

Players make numerous more errors than officials in a game, they contribute more to the outcome of a game than any official.
Again I agree, but we pay good money to see games where the ONLY thing we should be concerned about is the errors that players make. Video referee decisions being blatantly wrong? Would you come away from those games blaming the players?

Hope this helped/

But we would have no game left to watch. Anyone who understands so little about what actually happens to a ball in flight between fast running players should not be allowed to even make suggestions. The thing is, if you have been watching the game any length of time, then you will have seen many great passes, which on your definition would be outlawed, and yet you never noticed. If you had, then you wouldn't be making such an ill-informed and ridiculous suggestion.


If you ask me, the vast majority of games I watch I don't "blame" anybody. We won, we lost, that's how it was. Yes the game probably had several talking points, yes many players will have made many mistakes, but "blame" is a sterile concept.

Where I do have some measure of agreement is the Video Ref setup. Not overlooking that in the majority of cases the VR is useful, and leads to the correct decision on many occasions when it wouldn't otherwise be possible, nevertheless there is a small but worrying number of absolutely perplexing VR decisions which I struggle to understand how they could possibly be made. Like the recent Ganson incident. But I don't see any solution. Ganson is a highly experienced and very good top class referee. What training or whatever could you possibly do, that would, or even might, prevent him from making such a fundamental human error again? He knows the rules, he knows he screwed up, he just looked but for some reason didn't see. I fail to see what could ever be done to prevent that.

This has of course been going on ever since the phantom Withers fingertip some decades back, and you can't stop a person from thinking they saw something they didn't, or make them see something that they missed.

Of course, if after Ganson on the recent occasion had reached his provisional decision, he had had a private word with the Sky team, and had the bleedin obvious pointed out to him, he would have thought "bloody hell", thanks lads" and made the right call. But then I don't want any input or influence from the broadcaster over match officiating, so that's a non-starter. So what could you do?

It`s nigh on impossible to judge a forward pass and get it bang on all of the time..someone is always aggrieved no matter what you do, if a player passes the ball full on backwards, with hip movement, hand movement but the wind blows the ball forwards and it goes over your so called line is it a forward pass because the ball has travelled forward.

If a player passes ball sideways and is running backwards so the catcher overruns him is that a forward pass..the player has just run onto a flat pass ala whitings to shaul.

To judge a forward pass bang on the ref.tjs have to be bang in line with the pass, look at the angle of the hands etc, while moving himself..so its impossible.
You could call 4 forward passes in a game and get them all wrong and be called biased etc, or miss all 4 and be called the same by the oppo teams` fans/players.

People should stop slagging off refs and if they think they can do better and dare take the stick then give it a go, if they havent got the guts to do it dont slag off someone who has.

The wind has nothing to do with it. The ball should be passed level or backwards [iin relation to the player passing the ball[/i and neither has where on the pitch the ball is caught, it is judged in relation to the player, [inot the ground[/i.

Newton's law of motion dictates that we couldn't play rugby without stopping to pass the ball, if that weren't the case.

If the ball is passed backwards but is blown sixty metres forward by the wind and then touched down by a player who who was onside when the pass was made it is a try.

Similar for knock-ons, if the player passes it backwards but it hits the ground and bounces forwards, thats not an knock-on and is not a forward pass either, but we do see them given as knock-ons.

A few that are missed are not marginally forward they are forward by at least a metre and the TJ's are lined with the action and they SHOULD call for them, think the VR should call blatant forward passes, not all but some.

Most of your points I completely agree with but this one is solvable, at least this year and next. We have nine full time referees. When full time refs were introduced they were paid £50k. I'm sure that's creeped up over the years so maybe it's £60k now. 9x £60k = £540k.

Luckily for the RFL they have a nice chunk of money that they was withheld from us. Double your refs so that you can bring in the two ref system used in the NRL and pump the remaining money into referee training programs to improve the standard in the lower tiers.

The problem with the above is that I don't think there are another nine referees out there who are of a suitable standard to step up to super league level. That is probably a bigger problem than the standard of the guys out there right now.

Incidentally, I don't think the refereeing standard is anywhere near as bad as some people on here make out but it shows yet another way in which that money could have been better spent

Cummins has said that officials make decisions about forward passes on the basis of whether the passer's hands are pointing forward. If officials have effectively simplified the forward pass rule into something that is practical to make decisions on, why not make that the rule? In which case the video ref would be able to rule on forward passes.

There is no reason why the VR cannot be asked to rule on forward passes. There is no sensible argument why a RL VR can't achieve this, when a RU VR seemingly can.

If the VR is in doubt, or can't be sure, then BOD to the attacking team. What's hard about it?

They keep saying on Sky that it looks different from different angles. And? If one angle raises a serious doubt, then why is that a problem? It's not.

Magic Weekend vs Rhinos. Tansey Try from the penalty that shouldn't have been and the 20 metre offside decision that was missed. That was 2 refereeing decisions costing one team the match whilst handing it to the other.

Overall, I think that too often the inconsistencies in penalties is the difference between too many matches. I've tried my very best to be impartial as I can this season - I appreciate that no one is going to get every decision right for 80 minutes - but the "referee's interpretation" comes into play so much. I can only really cite Bradford games as examples as they're the ones I've been to, so:

Bradford vs Saints (Roby) - Plethora of penalties against Bradford in first 10 minutes for laying on. Player sin binned. Nothing really the other way.

London vs Bradford (Child) - Kaufusi horrendous head shot on Donaldson, knocking him out. Placed on report. Play stopped, penalty given. Later given 3 matches.

Bradford vs Catalans (Bentham) - Really fresh in the memory. This could be the only game of Rugby League I've ever seen where not one player has been offside throughout. It wasn't so much about what he gave (for the most part I thought he got the major calls right) but what he didn't.

I think moving to two referees is a brilliant idea. It's clearly too much for one man to watch for the defensive line being onside and making sure there is no interference/mistake at the play of the ball. A defensive ref and an attacking ref makes perfect sense.

I have often said that since referees went full time the standard of officiating has fallen. However, I cannot support your petition because I don't agree with some of your other points...

1. I don't think you can ask for change just because spectators come away from games questioning refs decisions - that will always happen come what may! (see next point on VRs). What you can complain about is the lack of consistency, and often inability to exercise much control over the game at all.

2. Use of video referee. I think that the VR is a waste of time for three reasons:

- It seems to have undermined referees willingness to make judgement calls on the field and their willingness to penalise players by using the sin-bin.

- I'd rather live with a 'human' error made on the spur of the moment than wait whilst the VR watches the 'action' over and over and still manages to make horrendous mistakes or the VR interferes during play.

- even if there weren't any poor VR decisions, you will never get the same grade of technology at every game because it will simply cost too much. So we will still have inconsistency.

Are you talking just in try scoring situations? Just those on TV or every game? I can see a situation where virtually every try scored would be referred to the VR, whichis not something I wish to see.

Rubbish. Leeds scored 42 points, presumably they were all Ganson's fault? None were defensive errors & penalties atributable to Bradford? Bradford only scored 38 points. Was Ganson responsible for all missed try & goal scoring opportunities? It's like accusing Ben Harris of directly costing Bradford the game because he failed to pass to a supporting Iestyn Harris 4 minutes into the game. There are thousnads of incidents that contribute to a game's final score, sadly it is the ones in the last few minutes or seconds that fans tend to focus on.

I'm a fan of 2 refs, but it is clearly not "too much" for one ref, otherwise how has the game worked this last century or so? I have never been aware of any ref having any difficulty in glancing at the defensive line at the appropriate moment and penalising offside and I'm surprised you suggest this. If this duty was "too much" for any individual then clearly that individual would not be up to the job.

I entirely agree, and said myself, that it was utterly ludicrous that Bentham never called an offside, but that was 100% clearly a decision he made, whether on instructions or not who knows, but without a shadow of a doubt there were some pretty disgusting offsides which on that particular day he made a policy decision to ignore, come what may.

Rubbish. Michael Withers' failure to touch a long floating pass occurred in the first half.....

It really wasn't. Look, dad, I know you like to be controversial, but one of the few givens in sport is that (a) Bradford lost and (b) had it not been for the phantom penalty and the missed offside, Bradford would 100% certainly have won. Cause, effect. Nail, head.

Just try scoring situations. In the same way that they don't go to the VR for every suspected knock on, but would if there was a suspected knock on in the build up to a try. There would have to be some suspicion that a pass is forward to justify going to the VR, just as there should be some suspicion of an infringement to justify going to the VR for any reason.

In view of the way that officials adjudicate on forward passes, looking at the direction of the passer's hands, there's no justification for exempting forward passes from VR decisions.

Just those on TV or every game? I can see a situation where virtually every try scored would be referred to the VR, whichis not something I wish to see.

Love the Aus version; the ref gives his decision; the VR can then only overturn it if there is compelling evidence that the on-field ref is wrong.

I too wouldn't like to see everything going to the VR but the problem with passes like the blatant forward pass by Catalans is that presumably the ref has no doubt (he hasn't seen it, and his touchie hasn't queried it) so the problem is that such howlers would still be allowed to stand, if you rely on the ref self-referring to the VR. I agree it's less than satisfactory, but then I am of the firm view that we shouldn't have whole teams of officials at a SL game that as a unit can't see such a blatant forward pass between the lot of 'em. I still don't get that.

I would recommend everyone watch the SLTV highlights to give their opinion on the Cats try, because to me it is close enough to stand as a try. There's no way as a VR would I cancel it.
I support the Aus version as well. I prefer minimal interference in the game, including tolerating marginal physical transgressions. There is always the luxury of reviewing any incidents in the calm of the week after anyway. I am told that there are no dismissals in Aussie rules, all disciplinary is done after the game, which I think is worth considering, except for extreme foul play.

I have to say I'm sick of hearing people going on about following the nrl. It's a typos idea two refs mean twice as many mistakes

I'd like to see the vr gone tbh. For me it hasn't worked. Slow the game down and often refs will look for reasons to not give tries. For example a player grounds the ball perfectly well and would be given if viewed in real time but we'll spend five minutes stood like chips while the vr slows it down to the point where he can show that for a fraction of 100th of a second there was a nanometer of separation between hand and ball.

There's a similar debate going on in cricket about the use of DRS and I can see your point about the focus on millimetres of separation. But the genie's out of the bottle as far as technology is concerned. If they scrapped the VR, Sky would still use the technology to highlight incorrect decisions. We'd still get numerous repeats of incidents and will spend most of the week after games listening to coaches and fans complaining about how they were robbed.

I don't necessarily agree that it encourages refs to not give tries. One thing that the technology has shown is just how good the players are at scoring in seemingly impossible positions. 20 years ago tries were routinely disallowed if there was any suggestion that the ball hadn't been properly grounded. Nowadays refs are much more inclined to believe that a player managed to get a legitimate touch on a ball a fraction of an inch before it went dead.

When it comes down to it though, it doesn't really matter if [ievery[/i single decision is correct or not, and let's be honest - one thing the video has proved is that the vast majority of decisions [iare[/i correct. Fine, we all sit at games and moan about the ref and always will; it's part of being a fan, but the only thing which really matters, well, there are two things actually, which are that [1 the referee gives an honest opinion and [2 the players accept that opinion and get on with the game. That, after all, is the situation we've had for nearly all the whole time rugby league [and every other sport has existed. I don't remember it being [ithat[/i bad.

There have always been calls for consistency and decisions being 'right', which has led us to the video - to be honest I think we should be more careful what we wish for.

A lot of talk about refs and their video counterparts, but I must admit for several years i have wondered what the two guys running the touchline do? Two extra pair of eyes which rarely seem open.

You and me both, if they are just touch judges to adjudicate if a player goes into touch why is it when the ref asks them in the build up to a try do they have blanks looks on their faces and also why are they level with the play (one following the attacking line and the other the defensive) can they very rarely see the offsides even when they are totally blatant, and as they are running the touch line following the play can they never see forward passes, fair enough some are 50/50 and if the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking side so be it but some are ridiculous may aswel be watching the NFL.