Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:28 am  

FlexWheeler wrote:

For the love of God have neutral refs, it's ridiculous. Can you imagine England football playing a world cup final against Germany, with a German ref?

1. If he was the best ref available, why not? If you accept the premise that a ref is going to be biased towards his home country then where does it stop? Home state/county? Home city/suburb? Do we assume that a ref born in Blacktown (Western Sydney) is incapable of fairly governing a game between Cronulla and Penrith because one is desirable beachside and the other is (relatively lower socio-economic) western suburbs? Do fans from one side want to eliminate a ref from a Hull derby based on which side of the river he lives?

2. It's up to the RLIF to bring more 'neutral' refs into the game.
History has shown that the RFL and NRL do not consider recruiting and mentoring referees from outside their domain to be important - there's one Kiwi in the NRL (and he's barely first grade standard) and are there any Welsh/Scots/French in the RFL at all? It's taken 105 years for the Aussies to get a couple of female touchies FFS. If the RLIF don't do it, it won't happen.

Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:17 pm  

Huddersfield1895 wrote:

We and the Aussies are booth as guilty for not helping to develop neutral referees.
We need to bring over some young French refs and the Aussies need to over some young kiwi refs.

I'd tend to agree with this.

Whilst I wouldn't question the integrity of any ref, this is one of those "we really don't help ourselves, do we?" sort of scenarios.

Why is it so difficult to introduce more French officials into Super League, or more New Zealand or South Sea Island officials into the NRL - they must surely exist?

[Bullseye]

Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:22 pm  

Perhaps there are the same problems with referee shortages in other countries - I wouldn't be surprised.

[TimperleySaint]

Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:24 pm  

The problem with this though is that there are probably far too few people wanting to be an RL referee in England or Australia, never mind outside of those.

And to have a referee up to the required standard for a World Cup Final, they would need to be working in the top leagues around the world - and where are the top leagues? England and Australia.

So unless there is ever a time when neither of these two teams are in a final, we are always going to struggle to get the calibre of ref required that isn't from one of these countries.

Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:10 pm  

It also puts the referee in a pretty horrible position.

Re: Neutral Referees : Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:46 pm  

I agree with the posts suggesting more referees, but who'd want to be a referee.. I'm not sure how players are in Australia, but in our English game.. players are constantly ruining our game finding ways to cheat.

Trapping the arm, dropping the ball when an opposition hand is near by, diving to the floor instead of playing the ball to insinuate they've been slowed down.
We've had players time wasting, booting the ball away, and at the start of last season, delibratly throwing the ball at the opposition player standing in the ruck.
Too many 50/50 calls to use to a players advantage for a ref to get correct, so they are the people the fans usually blame.

Re: Neutral Referees : Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:24 pm  

I’ve no doubt that any ref will have the honest intention of refereeing objectively and fairly. I don’t see how it is possible not to be biased albeit unintentionally.

An Australian RL ref as a child will have been and still will be an RL fan. He will be a supporter of an NRL club and will be a fan of Australia. It’s inconceivable that those facts will not influence his decision making.

That said we need refs of other nations to be refereeing in SL and the NRL before they can be appointed to international games. That’s up to the administrators of those leagues to increase the diversity of the refs in their respective competitions. Until that happens there’s no chance of neutral refs.

Re: Neutral Referees : Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:14 pm  

IIRC a few years ago in one of the 4 Nations games, England vs Australia, the proposal was put forward that Thierry Alibert was to be the referee, but the ARL complained that he wasn't experienced enough, and they got Steve Ganson instead.

Hence, even if there is someone "neutral" it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone sees the as most suitable.

Re: Neutral Referees : Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:46 pm  

Ganson was one of the referees 'coaches', is that why the ref in the final was blinkered for some stuff but open eyed for others?
He did okay but made too many mistakes for supposedly the best ref in the comp and too many calls went their way, forward pass for their try (though marginal others in the competition were being called that were close), high shots ignored all round but the early one on widdop was noticeable by its absence of a penalty considering he then penalised us for a high shot not long after. oh the charge down, I still haven't seen/read an explanation as to why that didn't clear the tackle count. It was far from a shocker but just enough leaning toward them to have an effect IMHO.

Re: Neutral Referees : Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:53 pm  

FlexWheeler wrote:

For the love of God have neutral refs, it's ridiculous. Can you imagine England football playing a world cup final against Germany, with a German ref?

The most ridiculous thing about that is the suggestion of England football playing in a World Cup final.