The tinfoil hat came out long ago. Back before Tandy was crucified for betting on a goal as first points, a mate of mine was making pretty decent money betting because he recognised that refs were always blowing a penalty in front of the sticks before a try had been scored. He saw that the goal kickers were offering short prices to score first points and that generally half the games played it was happening. This generally meant that the gambling agencies eliminated 32 other players paying out bets by people backing someone to score a try. Obviously it began to be noticed by quite a few people and the gambling agencies decided it was time to change things up. It stopped when Tandy was wiped out of the game though and I've suspected that refs are working for gambling agencies since then. I'd love to be able to hang that hat up. The game is harder to enjoy when I suspect that refs are cheating. But when coaches started getting fined for complaining about refs the hat kind of became a permanent fixture. I've seen too many blatantly bad calls to hang the hat up.
If it helps mate I’m also an owner of a TFH
. It’s a small size and I try to leave it on the hat rack mostly but increasingly I see things in life that seem impossible to be co-incindental.
I’d like to think RL isn’t one of those compromised things as you describe (at least as blatantly) but perhaps that’s naive. Race fixing has been happening forever for instance. However coaches being fined for criticising refs is older than approx 10 years, right?
Tandy - what a mess - journeyman, crook and drug addict. Met a grim end far too young too.
