Anyone reading the TCT blogs will be across the close relationship the Eels have with the referees who utilise our oppossed training sessions as training of their own to hone their officiating.
This has been an on-going relationship over a number of years and I’d be surprised if a number of other teams are not doing similiar.
Last year many a match, rightfully or wrongly were turned on their heads by the refs with a run of penalties against one team turning the match. In all my years of watching rugby league Ive never seen such an impact on the results as 2018 by officitating. With the likelihood of officiating impacting results in 2019 very high, its a hugely important focus area to be successful.
I wonder whether our cosy relationship with the refs is a good thing or not and welcome your opinions.
On one hand it it could provide a positive relationship between or the players and ref, as well as an understanding of how they will officiate in games. On the other it provides refs with familiarity of what mistakes to look for with each of our players. Perhaps it could even bias the refs against us in fear of being accusaed of being too buddy buddy. Are all the top teams as cosy with the refs? After last year, I cant see any major positives from arrangement. I wonder if a better arrangement is to have an ex referee like Billy Haragon or similiar advising us on how to better manipulate the rules for advantage like the Storm and Roosters seemed to do..
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All teams do it Victor it's not just the Eels, yes there were a few games where the refs screwed us over. The refs adopted a different approach to how they ref the game, we simply didn't adapt and that is a failure of the entire squad including the coaching staff. The Rooster openly admitted that they had to change there approach I think it was about 5 or 6 games into the 2018 season. Our boys just buried the heads in the sand and hoped for the best.
As technology has increased ref standards have decreased. Intuition and anticipation have been lost.
Or is it the increase of technology and the way the NRL utilise technology that has decreased the confidence and standards of refs?
Personally I would lilke to see the NRL take an approach similar to Union, where the on field ref can ask the video ref to show a very specific replay, then the on field ref makes the decision. The video ref just plays on the big screen what the on field ref wants to see.
How many times have you seen players query the on field ref why the video ref made a certain decision and the on field ref can only say that that was the decision that was made upstairs, implying he can not offer a decent explanation of why the video ref made the decision they made.
Every single team particularly in Sydney utalise the refs i have a i wouldn't say friend but a friend of a friend who is a ref and has trained with most teams he did mention that there is a step up in quality at eels training this season from last.
Its quite interesting as no one can doubt the fitness of the refs they are elite in there fitness and preparation he reckon the gap from top teams to bottom can be seen in training most do the same stuff some just do those little 1% things better