Agree, but I am not laughing. For the first time ever( win lose or draw),I left a game before the final whistle. Along with thousands of others, I left the game 20 minutes before full time. The reason? Not because we were losing but because I was appalled by the inept and corrupt performance of the two pink marshmallows in the middle and the Stevie Wonder clones in the video referees box.As I made my way to the train station for the trip back to Lidcombe to start a 3&1/2 hour car trip home I was fuming. Thinking along the lines of ditching my season pass for the rest of this year and beyond, I was trying to get my head around what I had just seen. The NRL needs to take a good long hard look at themselves, in relation to the way they treat the fans. It has been a year in which the playing field has been tipped in favour or certain sides with the fools in the middle making it up as they go along. Sides and not only our side are being shafted every week with decisions made to ensure that "this is the most even competition since Adam was a boy" ( remember the wish list of a certain David Gallop?)
Errors will be made each and every week by officials, they are only human, so when will the rule book become black and white, not grey where a million interpretations of a single rule make decisions a lottery. All we fans want is CONSISTENCY, week in and week out.
The NRL wants bums on seats, but if the treatment of fans as fools or cash cows continues many will indeed say stuff you" If I want to watch league I will do so in the comfort and warmth of my own home where I can switch channels if the crap dealt out by officials becomes too much, rather than in a soulless half empty footy stadium." Channel Nine will not mind as they are winners regardless, but footy clubs might when season ticket revenue and merchandise sales dive.
I watched last nights main referee control our NSW Cup game at Belmore a few weeks ago in front of a crowd where players and officials outnumbered fans. His performance on that particular night was a carbon copy of last night; pathetic. Steven Clark should be sacked immediately, but that won't ever happen as the NRL never admits to errors, just ask the Cowboys in relation to their last two finals campaigns. In the light of this he should at least never be allowed to officiate any match we compete in.
Not sour grapes because if it was every one from NRL commentators to national newspapers could be accused of the same, because they are all saying it too.
