Mate you've told us about your reffing credentials and past experiences so I'd say you rightly should be considered more knowledgeable on modern day refereering than most on here.
What you've written about is a fairly strong call to arms for our club Admin to consider.
Without putting too much detail onto it or slander.... Do you feel there is the opportunity for betting irregularities to influence what happens on the field.
Or is it simply explained away by referees personal dislikes of teams or previous embarassing incidents for them associated with our team or fans eg (say Black Friday Graham/Cummins/water bottles). Or strong coaches/club owners frightening/latent manipulation of refs into favouring their teams.
Be interested in your analyses.
Thanks for the positive comments wendog.
There is no doubt refereeing is a tough gig, but I will also tell you that umpiring Indoor Cricket is nearly as hard.
My refereeing mentor when I started at 16 was my science teacher and former 1st Grade touch judge Ian McCall. If you have ever seen the famous fight between Manly and Newtown in 1981 he was the one trying to break up the stoush between Broadhurst and Bowden.
He drummed into me 4 basics;
Good 5 yards (now 10 metres).
Markers square.
Pick up forward passes. Not easy when players get between the referee and the ball and block your line of vision.
Release the tackled player.
For a long while I have been an advocate of 2 referees at the Elite level as trying to keep outside backs onside and markers square at the same time is extremely difficult.
Leave everything else in back play to the touch judges. Quite frankly some of them I had in S G BALL and Jersey Flegg were of no help at all.
I found out in my 1st year aged 16 what pressure is all about. Between my first and second year I had a review with the head of referees in the junior league and I requested not to be allocated games involving the club I was still playing for. They thought I would do them favours and their opponents were sure I was. Neither of which is true. My request was granted.
The worst type of referee is one who responds to pressure from either the home crowd or home players. In 99% of cases the ref knows more about the rules than boofheads in the crowd.
Unfortunately yesterday we had cecchin being influenced by the home crowd. Normally he is better than that. Cummins in particular has a problem in that area as the penalty counts in 2 games involving Newcastle at home this season against us and Manly would prove.
I think in every NRL game there are 5 or so 50-50 calls that if they all go one teams way that team will win. Decisions can often change possession, which leads to field position and points.
We haven't been getting those calls for a while.
Are ref's betting on games. Don't know but I would hope not. I never did but I was once approached over the phone by someone, I knew who it was to take a $100 bribe to engineer the result of a semi final. I told him where to go and reported it to the head of ref's. He swapped me to another semi final instead. God only knows how he found out I was doing that game.
There are LOTS of stories I can tell you about things that happened. Plenty of times I got booed off the park and once all 3 of us had to remain in a locked dressing room at Pratten Park until the police dispersed the crowd and we were escorted home. 13 players were sent off that day. The teams hated each other. They were only allowed from that day forth to have 2 of their players in the same team.
To answer your question about disliking teams. Yes it is distinctly possible that past incidents can dominate your thinking. I certainly think that's why our deplorable record under the Sutton Brothers escalated to the level it did. Now that the sequence under Gerard has been broken let's hope it doesn't return.
My final thought is that a good referee will rule on what happens in front of him with help from his support staff. If he gets influenced by outside noise he is not up to standard. My view is the best referee is Grant Atkins, son of the former Parramatta winger. The best up and comer is Adam Gee who has impressed me a few times. Let's see if they get game in the final series.
Good to hear from you wendog.