In any given NRL game the ref could make 100’s of “correct decisions”, but they don’t. They ignore some and enforce others. It’s not the decisions they make but they ones they should make but choose not to. It’s all very well to look at every decision and say that they were correct, but that’s erroneous. What we shouldn’t ignore are decisions that the ref should have made, but didn’t.
For example in our game against the Knoughts the ref could have penalised them countless times for holding down, slowing our play the ball, but chose not to. So I reserve the right to criticise him when he calls us for a shorter holding down. It may well be the right decision but it is none the less selective, hence deserving of a heckle.
Always a Bulldog
All your points raised are valid TT. I used to go to the ground with Sports Ears on listening to what the ref was saying. There have been times when a player was penalised for not being square and the ref said, “ That was the 3rd time I could have got you”. As you indicated he had ignored others. Basically trying to manage the game. Some fans might call this nit picking.
We weren’t miked up in my era in the middle of the field in Junior League. I tried to call players out who were offside or Not square. If they complied I let the game flow, if they got involved after being called out, I penalised them.
I will share a couple of situations where it was patently obvious a fan around me didn’t have a clue about simple decisions revolving around lines.
1. My wife and I were at Suncorp. The guy behind us had been carrying on all night. Finally he made his mistake. One of the Broncos kicked in general play, and you could see the chalk fly up as it landed on the line on the full. Touch judge called it correctly as out on the full. This guy abused the touchie and said the ball was in, it landed on the line. My wife turned around and said “they are not playing tennis out there”. That shut Him up for the rest of the night.
2. We were at Shark Park before “The Bunker” was brought in. The Sharks tried to score but the player grounded the ball on the touch in goal line. We watched the replay and saw this clearly. I said no try the ball is out. The guy in front abused me and said this will come back “try benefit of the doubt”. I said that would be the case if he grounded it on the try line, but not the touch in goal or dead ball lines. When it came back no try he wanted to fight me, and I had to call security.
Those are just 2 of Countless examples I could raise where you wonder why people who don’t know very basic rules, make stupid comments.