Dear Sir/Madam,
I write to you today as a passionate fan of over 60 years and a former member, who is very disillusioned with the game at present, particularly the on-ground officiating of our games.
I have played, refereed and coached the game at junior league level, and thus consider I know more about the game than many fans who attend games.
The source of my disillusionment is three particular referees who regardless of who we are playing, can’t seem to find fault with our opponents.
I have had concerns about Gerard Sutton, ever since the Good Friday game of 2015. Since that day we have won three games out of approximately 30, under his stewardship, Our recent victory over St. George broke a losing sequence of 18 straight games dating back to our previous victory under him in Round 1, 2016 against Manly at Brookvale.
I am well aware that for much of this period our team has never really challenged for the top 8, but there have been games that have turned on the back of a 50-50 call, which always seem to go against us. Broncos at Suncorp 2018 being a classic example. I wrote to the NRL 2 years ago about G Sutton, but was given the stock standard one size fits all answer of “The referees are doing their best”.
His brother Chris is of the same ilk. Our record under him is 2 victories from the last 14 games, and when I saw him run onto the field on Sunday, I knew we were in trouble, as the final penalty count not including repeat sets of 6 nil proved. That was the 3rd game this year where we received 1 or less penalties, which is an absolute nonsense. I’m sick and tired of coming up against opponents who are allegedly close to perfect.
The performances of Ben Cummins during our games this year, should also not escape scrutiny, particularly in the round 1 game against Newcastle, when he clearly responded to home crowd noise.
All three of them seem to put the Bulldogs under more scrutiny than our opponents. What we get pinged for, our opponents seem to get away with. My issue is not he penalties we concede, it’s the one we don’t receive.
In 3 of our recent games, if you add the tackle count restarts and penalties together, we were, 12-3, 13-4 and 11-3 against us, when playing higher ranked teams, and there were several decisions in the games, that could have gone our way but didn’t.
Were we 3 times more undisciplined than our opponents, I doubt it. This has a flow on effect when the next game comes along, even with a different referee, who knows our recent history.
I think Trent has handled himself very diplomatically in press conferences pointing out the disparities, and he was 100% in taking up his concerns through the correct channels with Graham Annesley, last week. I suspected it would have little or no impact, and so it proved.
Our team is not playing well. Lots of stupid mistakes, like on Sunday trying for an offload in our 10-metre zone after scoring our first try and losing control of the ball. However this is a by-product of having less than 50% possession week after week after week, as the penalty counts and repeat sets mount up, and give our opponents a dream run where they don’t have to do anywhere near the amount of defence we have to.
Thus our players take risks they probably shouldn’t.
We have bought well for 2022, but our biggest challenge is turning around these lopsided counts, and it is something I suggest the senior people at the club, should be having discussions with the appropriate people at the NRL over the summer, with statistics to back up our concerns.
Right now we are an easy target, and I suspect it will remain so, if we continue to cop it on the chin, and hope it turns around.
