Usually a job for the ref to spot.He manages the rest of the game

Two excellent post by Nothus. Well said.

Asking Sky to stop micro anylising every single decision looking for controversy. Slow-mo, super slow-mo, frame by frame by frame and super zoom all drawing attention to the referees getting a marginal call wrong. Not to go all "Leaguefreek" but I still bet the referee typically makes no more errors than the average player in a game but partly due to the telly coverage they are all highlighted time and again.

Do football forums have threads every single weeks about what ref their team has got this week? "Oh no, we've got Thaler - we've no chance" or "We never win with Childs reffing us" and the like are . I speak to reasonable football fans often and they have little or no care who the ref is/was in Leeds Utd games, wonder if it's unique to us as a sport/set of supporters?

The NRL bunker doesn't p!$$ about like our VR does,they get on with it, in an instance.

I just cant understand why the RFL didn't do this at the Magic weekend when all the "senior" referees where taking charge.

To do it this weekend at The Bash could potentially see it descend into chaos.

Even though i don't agree with it, you make a very good point.

To quote Steve Ganson:-

“The Summer Bash offers the perfect opportunity to conduct a trial across six games and we will be interested to receive feedback from fans, players, coaches and the broadcaster following the event.”

In other words, it's only the Championship, and we can experiment there without upsetting Sooper Dooper League clubs with radical changes. Ironically, we don't see VR's in the Championship, as a general rule!

Pretty much



This way it can be a complete disaster and the sport's reputation won't take a hit because nobody gives a damn about RL below the top division in this country.

Well as a huge step backwards in terms of getting important decisions right that's a brilliant thing to do.

The problem isn't what the VRs are asked to check on rather that they spend too long checking on them. If after two/three views of the same incident you can't decide if something should stop a try then it shouldn't stop a try.

This will mean that you can be offside from a kick, shove an airborne player in the back before you collect the ball and then run behind your own man to the try line and still be awarded a try as long as you ground it properly.

Bravo RFL, leading the way in innovating stupidity.

That’s simply because the refs need retraining in manual decision making. The Bash is ideal for that as the Championship is use to seeing refs make bad calls, so they won’t look out of the ordinary come weekend,whatever streamlined VR is used.

Good.

But, this happens anyway, and hardly gets picked up.

It's more a case of scaling technology back to use it for matters of fact, rather than opinion. I don't know why they can't check if someone is in front of a kicker as well.

If two people can't agree whether obstruction has occurred then I would argue it's the law that's the problem.

Simplify the laws and have the video ref make sure that all have been enforced properly.

Obstruction is a simple one - you can't run behind your own player unless they have just passed/offloaded the ball to you. The onus should be on the attacking side to not be in the way of the defensive line. It doesn't have to be harder than that.

This risks big games ending up being decided by terrible decisions that could easily have been avoided.

That's how i see it too Jim.

Because thats up to these inept linesmen to sort out.

No doubt this new change will benefit some teams at the summer bash.

Another almighty cock up by video ref tonight

The VR wasn't asked to look at the Cas try ,if that's what you're alluding to. The second one the VR got it right.

Ref just made an on field call as a knock on. In my.opinion the video ref shouldn't be able to just interfere whenever he wants and change calls.

The tackle in the air penalty is very inconsistently penalized for. Shenton was tackled in the air very obviously and Saints got a penalty!

So,DP doesn't even know what's going on with the referees atm.

He never does when Cas lose.

Exactly my thoughts, I thought the referee had a decent game tonight, ironically I think the only decision he got wrong was the Watts try.