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Proof Refs have been under the same pressures forever

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RugbyFuture

Lord Logo
Was delving into the trove on rugby history and found this interesting article.

I thought it would be interesting in light of criticism of Joubert's reffing in the semi's

Decoded it for those hard of reading (to the best of my ability)
old ref complaint.jpg
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
I don't think its improved anything in League.

If Clancy is an incompetent muppet,the solution is to skill him up,or remove him.
Not duplicate him.
IMO

I'm not sure the only options are replicating an incompetent muppet or leaving only one incompetent muppet on the field.
 

yourmatesam

Desmond Connor (43)
Is it time for multiple referees like many other sports?

As an active referee, I can't see how this would work. There's just too many variables in Rugby Union to add another referee into the mix for it not to f@#k up (more than it already does...).
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
Keep it at one ref. Can you imagine a situation of having two pedantic refs on the field at the same time? Penalties aplenty.

Yeah, I can. As these things go, I think you would get a load of penalties at the outset. But before long, whether it's through the coaches, captains, or just the players sorting themselves out, they'd start to straighten out their own play and you'd get some better games.

A second ref on the field could also help stop a lot of situations before they take up valuable game and air time in the booth. You could see situations like that second ref warning players when they're offside before they go chasing a kick rather than spending 3 minutes checking with the TMO if the player was legal when they scored. Either the player gets onside, or if there is a question, that second ref can just quash it right there.

That only works with competent referees, but that's a different question than whether there should be two or one.
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
As an active referee, I can't see how this would work. There's just too many variables in Rugby Union to add another referee into the mix for it not to f@#k up (more than it already does.).

I've seen it work in other complicated sports. Not sure why rugby would be the exception.
 

yourmatesam

Desmond Connor (43)
I've seen it work in other complicated sports. Not sure why rugby would be the exception.

What sports? Gridiron?

Sure, but what are further implications of that? Video replays, long drawn out reviews and complicated structures.

I've not looked into any reports on the South African experiment but would imagine that if such a change were to be implemented on a larger scale, that 2016 is the year to do it.

I'm open to seeing how that would work, but am not confident that it would add value to the game any more than the current system.

Have you heard the whining about the video ref at the RWC? Imagine what it would be like if there were two active referees on the field! Rugby's grey enough without putting another shade into the mix.
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
What sports? Gridiron?

Sure, but what are further implications of that? Video replays, long drawn out reviews and complicated structures.

NFL refs are also able to blow up any infringement they see. They don't have to manage the game like a rugby ref is expected to do.

Plus with the flag system they can discuss different desisions/interpretations before awarding penalties. Rugby wouldn't put up with that either

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
What sports? Gridiron?
Okay, here's an example of a sport that regularly moves from one ref to three. (Not gridiron, but they make it work too.)

The wrestling World Championships recently finished -- freestyle, greco and women's freestyle. I'm in the States, an in collegiate wrestling, there's only one ref on the mat (except for finals of major tournaments, but that may have changed). At the international level, there's the ref, mat judge (scorekeeper), and mat chairman (timekeeper) -- and a TMO, for just two competitors. So the North American wrestlers have to switch from having one ref to three depending on the competition.

The way it works is once the ref makes a call, the mat judge has to agree with the call before the points are scored. If there's a scramble and the scoring isn't immediately clear, the mat chairman gets involved. It all moves along really smoothly -- you never notice when a call is confirmed, because happens almost immediately. Throughout the hundreds of matches at the Worlds, I only saw maybe three or four times where the officials had to go to the video because they weren't sure how to make the call.

But the TMO can get involved, and they have interesting rules for that. If a coach or competitor doesn't agree with a call, they can challenge it withing 5 seconds of the call. A wrestler gets one challenge per match, so they have to be judicious, and if a coach throws the challenge, the wrestler can turn it down -- but can only turn it down once per match, to keep it from being used as a stalling technique. A separate group of refs (called a jury-of-appeal -- basically the TMO) reviews the call. If the wrestler who called for the challenge wins the appeal, the score is changed. If the wrestler who called for the challenge loses the appeal, the other wrestler receives a point.

Of course this isn't a one-to-one parallel with rugby, and I'm not saying there should be three refs on the pitch. I'm just using it as an example where the sport regularly moves from 1 ref to 3 without much issue. The model of a call being confirmed is interesting; you could see something like that for scrums, where there's always two or three refs watching it, and whatever call is made has to be confirmed. Maybe also allowing a limited number of captain's challenges if they feel a ref got a call wrong, but doing something like losing possession if they review it and the call was right.

Because lets face it, as long as the ref is on the side of the feed, the LHP on the opposite side can apparently angle all day without consequence. If the ref blew up a scrum for one side wheeling, and two others could immediately say "No, it was the other side boring in, and that's why it turned," you'd get the right call, and eventually packs would stop cheating because they'd be putting their side at a disadvantage rather than earning a penalty.

It's something I could imagine being trialed at the club or NRC level, and would take some time to bed in. There'd be growing pains, but it doesn't seem impossible; it'd probably take a while before teams started to police themselves a little better because they couldn't get away with as much, but right now there's little incentive to do so. The other problem I can see is apparently there aren't enough referees of quality or the necessary standard to fulfill such a need, so who knows. And I'm not sure some current sanctions are enough to limit something like cheating at a scrum, but stiffer sanctions wouldn't matter if the ref isn't getting the call right in the first place. All I'm saying is I've seen multiple refs work in another sport, and work well.

(The challenge in wrestling makes for great sponsorship opportunities. Normally a red or blue foam cube is thrown out onto the mat. But in some sponsored tournaments, I've seen red or blue stuffed Angry Birds used instead of cubes, and recently Minions wearing red or blue overalls. So the ref has to pick up this stuffed animal and carry it around while being the stoic official in charge.)
 

MonkeyBoy

Bill Watson (15)
I've seen it work in other complicated sports. Not sure why rugby would be the exception.

Rugby Refereeing is more about working out what infringements are causing an advantage/disadvantage and acting to prevent an offence or trend than blowing every offence. Referees are meant to be there to enable an equitable game not penalise every offence... because there is one at every breakdown. The downside to this is it is all about interpretation and good luck getting more than one referee to agree to every decision in a game.
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
Rugby Refereeing is more about working out what infringements are causing an advantage/disadvantage and acting to prevent an offence or trend than blowing every offence. Referees are meant to be there to enable an equitable game not penalise every offence. because there is one at every breakdown. The downside to this is it is all about interpretation and good luck getting more than one referee to agree to every decision in a game.

I think people seem to be assuming it'd just be a constant debate between two refs over what happened at a ruck. We don't know that because it's not been tried, but we do know that we currently have refs getting things precisely wrong at the set piece. All I'm sayings is you don't know until you explore it a bit, and doing nothing will result in no change.
 
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