Unfortunately its the culture of many sports now to hang the officials out to dry rather than focus on the multiple errors players make per game. Football is the worst offender but with its global, massive audience, it has become the the norm to see officials surrounded and effectively bullied on the field.
With increased technology comes closer scrutiny of decisions. For those soccer fans out there bemoaning the VAR system (which personally I think it no where near as user friendly as the VR in RL) they have effectively go a few decades worth of players abusing referees to thank for it.
As for RL, since I started watching the sport in the early 1980's there has always been a few players prepared to have a chat with the man in the middle. Probably the first example I can recall was Andy Gregory. The difference will be he was mostly likely making light of something that had happened. There were some strong characters who were officials back then and I can imagine gave a fair amount back to these players verbally. With them being mic'ed up now, clearly that cannot happen.
The Captain should bet he only player who can approach the ref. Other than that, a player should only speak to the official when asked to by the official themselves.
For a sport that used to pride itself on the respect shown, we have gone backwards at an alarming rate.
Any fan who blames the referee for a defeat is fooling themselves. Games last 80 minutes and are not based on one decision near the end of the game. If the referee makes a howler in the 79th minute, is that any worse to your own player knocking on close to his own line in the 5th minute? Not in my eyes.
The game as got quicker, but the officiating is years behind. Invest into having two onfield refs for SL games. ATEOTD the in goal touch judges are hardly ever used at all, it not like there would need to be a huge recruitment drive, just some intense training.
Impose bans which deter players for even speaking the referee. A few red cards over a few weeks would soon sort this.
