2022 NRL General discussion

[BurgoShark]

I once saw a ref give the scrum feed to the blatantly wrong team off an infringement. Crowd were going off at him about it.

Next stoppage in play he held up hand to crowd and shouted out 'sorry I did get that last scrum wrong, don't know what I was thinking, I made a mistake'

People make mistakes especially at the lower grade levels but it's not that hard to own up to it. The league can't bury their heads in the sand about it though. If the league won't pay attention these guys who are willing to ref will keep making mistakes and get abused out of the role... or even worse, make the NRL

I’m fully supportive of refs making mistakes when they are learning. I would never, ever yell at a ref, and would only ever approach them to shake their hand and thank them for the game. I expect them to get half a dozen calls wrong either way, and am very understanding and tolerant of this.

My issues are primarily player safety, and that the league sometimes assigns us referees that are from the home team (they are supposed to all be neutral).

I can deal with a hundred fudged knock-on calls in a season. I have zero patience for refs ignoring blatantly dangerous play.

 

[bort]

I’m fully supportive of refs making mistakes when they are learning. I would never, ever yell at a ref, and would only ever approach them to shake their hand and thank them for the game. I expect them to get half a dozen calls wrong either way, and am very understanding and tolerant of this.

My issues are primarily player safety, and that the league sometimes assigns us referees that are from the home team (they are supposed to all be neutral).

I can deal with a hundred fudged knock-on calls in a season. I have zero patience for refs ignoring blatantly dangerous play.

Need to put them through the WA system.
Had a ref for a few years who had played a few season with our club beforehand - every time we played under him we got penalise out of the game.
I don’t think he didn’t like us, think he just went too far to seem not biased.
In the end our discipline would get bad because of how frustrating it was.
Clubs won’t want their own ref then (not that was considered our ref)

I don’t know if justified or not as I was very young but my dad once got ejected from one of my games for calling the ref a peanut.
Dad was the touchie haha

 

[BurgoShark]

Need to put them through the WA system.
Had a ref for a few years who had played a few season with our club beforehand - every time we played under him we got penalise out of the game.
I don’t think he didn’t like us, think he just went too far to seem not biased.
In the end our discipline would get bad because of how frustrating it was.
Clubs won’t want their own ref then (not that was considered our ref)

I don’t know if justified or not as I was very young but my dad once got ejected from one of my games for calling the ref a peanut.
Dad was the touchie haha

I had a kid sent to the bin a few weeks ago for calling the ref a ranga. I guess there are worse things to call him than a peanut or a ranga.

 

[bort]

I had a kid sent to the bin a few weeks ago for calling the ref a ranga. I guess there are worse things to call him than a peanut or a ranga.

Whatever happens if a referee literally shits himself during a game don't let him catch your team laughing about it in the shed before he next officiates you. They really struggle to maintain a non-biased position then.

 

[Sir Chadley]

My son has started to referee junior soccer, under 6s to under 11s. He decided to do this as he didn't want to play any more.

The referees squad is some size but not many of them want to referee the Under 11 games. So while my son is only 12, he is happy to do this and so they roster him normally on for Under 11s. So he's refereeing kids only 2 years younger than him. Gets paid a bit more too which is a good incentive.

He's really enjoying it so far and while I know it really doesn't compare to the examples of @bort and @burgess1978 at the moment, soccer refs can end up that way. I know when I was playing Over 45s soccer a few years ago, there were some truly awful refs who you just knew hated your club and were favouring the other team.

I make sure I am there watching him all the time, encouraging him and evaluating how he is going. I haven't had to have a quiet word with a coach or parent on the sideline just yet if he makes a wrong call but I did come close to it on the weekend. Thankfully the parent concerned didn't repeat what I thought he had said initially.

 

[BurgoShark]

My son has started to referee junior soccer, under 6s to under 11s. He decided to do this as he didn't want to play any more.

The referees squad is some size but not many of them want to referee the Under 11 games. So while my son is only 12, he is happy to do this and so they roster him normally on for Under 11s. So he's refereeing kids only 2 years younger than him. Gets paid a bit more too which is a good incentive.

He's really enjoying it so far and while I know it really doesn't compare to the examples of @bort and @burgess1978 at the moment, soccer refs can end up that way. I know when I was playing Over 45s soccer a few years ago, there were some truly awful refs who you just knew hated your club and were favouring the other team.

I make sure I am there watching him all the time, encouraging him and evaluating how he is going. I haven't had to have a quiet word with a coach or parent on the sideline just yet if he makes a wrong call but I did come close to it on the weekend. Thankfully the parent concerned didn't repeat what I thought he had said initially.

I reffed as a kid too, from 13 through to about 16. It was great money. On my Saturday servo job I was making $27 for half a day. On the Sunday I'd ref one u8's game and get $10, a pie and a coke. Easy money. You'd get abuse even for u8's, but tbh you wouldn't really hear it out in the middle. It was far worse if/when you had to be touchie for u14's +. I got 10x the verbal abuse as touchie.

One good thing the league are doing this year is the "positive environment program". E.g. Automatic 6 weeks for bench players joining a brawl.

 

[Sir Chadley]

I reffed as a kid too, from 13 through to about 16. It was great money. On my Saturday servo job I was making $27 for half a day. On the Sunday I'd ref one u8's game and get $10, a pie and a coke. Easy money. You'd get abuse even for u8's, but tbh you wouldn't really hear it out in the middle. It was far worse if/when you had to be touchie for u14's +. I got 10x the verbal abuse as touchie.

Seems to be more verbal abuse on the sidelines in footy than there is in soccer. In soccer you do have the "wog" element but in general I have found parents to be pretty good while watching the games my son referees and also had played.

 

[BurgoShark]

Seems to be more verbal abuse on the sidelines in footy than there is in soccer. In soccer you do have the "wog" element but in general I have found parents to be pretty good while watching the games my son referees and also had played.

My son played soccer until he was 9, and still plays summer comp. I reckon there is less screaming at refs but more parents who scream at their own kids.

 

[Sir Chadley]

My son played soccer until he was 9, and still plays summer comp. I reckon there is less screaming at refs but more parents who scream at their own kids.

Haha, yes mate, that is definitely true.

 

[MrDravid]

Seems to be more verbal abuse on the sidelines in footy than there is in soccer. In soccer you do have the "wog" element but in general I have found parents to be pretty good while watching the games my son referees and also had played.

My oldest currently plays u9s and I haven't heard anything said about the ref... maybe because in his comp they still not playing for points (they don't even keep official scores).

 

[Sir Chadley]

My oldest currently plays u9s and I haven't heard anything said about the ref... maybe because in his comp they still not playing for points (they don't even keep official scores).

That's good mate. Is this the Sutherland Shire Junior Soccer Association? Because if it is, yes they don't play for points but I'll tell you now they do keep official scores. It is not published but it is used to do grading for the following season. I think this is the case for most local comps.

 

[HaroldBishop]

That's good mate. Is this the Sutherland Shire Junior Soccer Association? Because if it is, yes they don't play for points but I'll tell you now they do keep official scores. It is not published but it is used to do grading for the following season. I think this is the case for most local comps.

Yep exactly how it is in our association.

 

[stormshark]

My son played soccer until he was 9, and still plays summer comp. I reckon there is less screaming at refs but more parents who scream at their own kids.

Apparently in the Aussie Rules down here, I'm told by multiple people, the Parents of the Jnrs are the Worst of any code. Weird, Cause the first few times i attended the League, some of the Big Units on the side lines were pretty intimidating. Some sort of Weird Counterbalancing (in a good way) seems to go on with the Club Cultures involved in the League down here. Sort of tribal camaraderie i would describe it. ( Even Had our Briton Nikora's Uncles' Funeral during Covid, they way my boys local club paid respects was unreal complete with Bikie Hearse Escort riders to the Ground , Haakka, Video etc)

 

[MrDravid]

That's good mate. Is this the Sutherland Shire Junior Soccer Association? Because if it is, yes they don't play for points but I'll tell you now they do keep official scores. It is not published but it is used to do grading for the following season. I think this is the case for most local comps.

Nah South Coast... might be different down here (or may not be), I'm not too involved with the club.

 

[apezza]

I reffed as a kid too, from 13 through to about 16. It was great money. On my Saturday servo job I was making $27 for half a day. On the Sunday I'd ref one u8's game and get $10, a pie and a coke. Easy money. You'd get abuse even for u8's, but tbh you wouldn't really hear it out in the middle. It was far worse if/when you had to be touchie for u14's +. I got 10x the verbal abuse as touchie.

One good thing the league are doing this year is the "positive environment program". E.g. Automatic 6 weeks for bench players joining a brawl.

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You had me at pie and a coke!

 

[Born&bred]

Issue is mate that he's not the only one. This has been going on all year.

About 6 weeks ago we submitted a video to the league of...
- a player being lifted and driven in the ground a la the Cleary tackle (no penalty)
- a player being coat-hangered (no penalty)
- a player being karate kicked in the knee to save a try (no penalty)
- a ref watching a concussed player stumble and fall to the ground, and then turning his back and playing on because the home team was attacking the line down by 4 points
- refs obviously cheating. E.g.
* telling players that the double knock on rule is "first team to knock on gets the feed"
* telling players that when the home team knocks on when attacking near your try line, it's a drop out
* extending the game 7 minutes past full time because the home team were trailing

The league refused to watch the video and sent us back a one line denial, saying that they had other refs at these games watching, and none of the things we claim actually happened.

Things haven't changed much from my Junior League Committee days then.

 

[GF78]

So… full tangent rant.

My son is out for the season after having his head taken off today. He was coat-hangered returning a kickoff, after which he stopped to shake off the effects. The referee didn’t penalise the coat-hanger, so about 2 seconds later he was hit by two different players while standing stationary and relaxed - one of whom hit him square in the temple, and the other who hit him from the side and jarred his shoulder. An hour later he was in hospital, having x-rays on his collarbone and vomiting from the concussion. He’ll now miss his grand final and his entire school footy season. It makes me sick what this sport has become.

No words. How did this once great game get to what happened you & yours? Sorry to hear.

 

[Western Sharkie]

No words. How did this once great game get to what happened you & yours? Sorry to hear.

Unfortunately it stems from the top down.

Kids see players like NAS and JWH cop either a fine or not get charged at all for blatant attacks at the head and think “Gee, I can get away with that as well”.

 

[apezza]

Unfortunately it stems from the top down.

Kids see players like NAS and JWH cop either a fine or not get charged at all for blatant attacks at the head and think “Gee, I can get away with that as well”.

Do you really think this happens or is this a bit of a myth?

I think its more the parents of some of these kids that's the problem. Watching how some of them carry on from the sidelines is ridiculous.

 

[Western Sharkie]

Do you really think this happens or is this a bit of a myth?

I think its more the parents of some of these kids that's the problem. Watching how some of them carry on from the sidelines is ridiculous.

I think it would be both.

Yes, some parents are “those parents” 100%, but I also think that the older kids are impressionable enough that if these high profile players can get away with it, they will too.