Getting the Aussies to come on boared is the dificult part, I agree with the need to bring back skill by beating set defences. The whole ethos seems to have changed over the years, I would love the emphasiss to be on keeping the ball in play, kicking the ball dead or tacking it over the dead ball line should be penalised. catching the ball in goal should not be rewarded by a 20 restart (10 meter restart by play the ball at best). Another idea I have mooted before is that each club should employ one full time referee(but having no say on them just paying the cost) giving us 14 full time refs who should be responsible for training & overseeing the officials in the lower leagues, I also think that ex players should be encouraged into the job even fast tracked.

Great. So is your idea that the player stop on the spot before passing the ball? I think that's netball isn't it?

Kosh is right, that particular line does your petition no favours at all.

No, they wont. One incorrect decision by a referee would not matter a jot if they players made fewer errors during the entire 80 minutes of a game. You cannot focus on one persons singular decision and say thats what decided a game.

If a referee get the wrong call in the first minute which leads to a try, its has the same impact on the score as an incorrect call in the last minute

If a referee misses a forward pass which doesn't lead to a try, should it be pulled up?

You are attempting to turn the game into American Football. It would last 3 hours to get through 80 minutes due to the stop start nature.

Personally I think referees do a decent job. Anyone who thinks things have got dramatically worse is very wrong. Holdsworth, Kershaw, Whitfield, Lindop et al all made huges clangers. But theirs were not shown in the minutest of details on TV for each game.

And before them you could go back to Sgt Major Eric Clay, that humpty-backed barsteward Thorpey and others. Remember when Holdsworth, Kershaw, Whitfield, Ronnie Campbell & Lindop were reffing, we also had the likes of John McDonald, Alan Burke et al.

There is a system for assessing referees with input from each club and a referees' assessor. There is a problem with recruitment and retention of referees and that problem is exacerbated by the levels of touchline abuse in the amateur game, especially at junior level. If you go to an amateur game, just listen to the abuse that comes from the touchlines, usually from speccies who would struggle to read The Laws of the Game without moving their lips at the same time. The OP has already evidenced his own struggle with the dynamics of the "forward pass" and he's not alone.

I'd like to see more openness and accountability among referees. There is a "league table" based on assessments received and I see absolutely no reason to keep that table secret. Stats are produced and published for each player, there's no reason that cannot be extended to the Grade 1 officials

The problem doesn't need petitions. It needs a bigger pool and/or a willingness to demote a ref who is clearly poor.
As an example I have seen numerous ref's in the Championship who look capable of a top league gig but as a general rule SL is a closed shop. Because of this the whole system becomes far to comfy for all.
As much as I don't want to I will go back to Ganson at the Eithad, I think we can all agree that the 'Tracked the wrong player' doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Yet it's so comfy in the ref's office that they thought/knew that 2 weeks off for Ganson and everything would go back to normal.
It did and it is because that is just how it is when it's a closed shop which has no real openess.
Players are pulled apart with Opta and you can easily compare 1 to another yet with referees it's all behind closed doors on some levels.

That is a genuine comment as it proves the point perfectly.
The fact you can't see that is your problem not mine.

It lends weight to the view that a not insignificant section of the Rovers fanbase are becoming increasingly prone to whining.

Well you could say that. I would then hope that you would take the B&W specs off and see that I used that example as it does actually prove my point what with nothing really changing when it was clear something needed too.
It's a long shot I know but one can only hope.

Oh BTW I haven't nor am I about to sign the petition as it is flawed but the system we have ATM is still not open enough.

As I say there ARE good refs below SL and when a SL ref drops one there should be a real issue of him being taken out of the firing line of SL rugby and given time to work through his 'game' whilst giving a younger/more greener ref a crack.
This has nothing to do with Hull KR but how are we ever going to get more refs SL ready if we restrict how many actually get a chance at a SL gig?

There will be referees capable of making thr step up to Superleague (and believe me, it is a BIG step up) but will they be any better than what's already there? There seems little point in trading in what you've got for an inferior model. A step towards increasing the number of refs available is to follow the Australian model of two on-field referees but I would imagine the biggest stumbling block would be cost. During the time I was officiating, I heard criticism of the cost of officials at every level of the game from Junior up to County level. Until the RFL and that in reality means the clubs, are prepared to properly fund the continued development of referees, we'll always struggle.

Local societies have always found it difficult tp recruit sufficient officials, this means that many games take place without an independent referee. Such a situation cannot assist player development, never mind referee development. Then if we look at the remuneration aspect it's hardly an attractive career path to chose, especially in the early days. Hull Society didn't charge at all for youth games, I doubt that has changed and it wasn't unusual to be appointed to referee two consecutive games on a Sunday morning. I was fortunate in that I didn't need the money and could usually take time off work as and when required, I also had a fully-expensed company car so travel expenses for out of town games wasn't a problem. It wasn't unusual for a rugby week to consist of:

Wednesday - schools middle
Friday - 'A' team middle
Saturday - Humberside League or BARLA middle or line
Sunday - 1st team line

Often I would also volunteer for a junior middle on a sunday morning, simply because there weren't enough referees to cover.

Add to that the cost of kit:

Black, red, yellow and green shirts and socks to match (none provided by the RFL)
Black shorts
Three pairs of rugby boots
Two pairs of Astroturf shoes for hard grounds
Touch Judge flags

Now factor in the already mentioned levels of touchline abuse and all of that adds up to not very attractive reasons to begin refereeing.

The RFL have occasionally embarked on a referees recruitment drive but that has been sporadic and of questionable success. Recruitment should be an ongoing exercise and should certainly be more professional than the past. New recruits should be mentored by senior referees but there simply aren't sufficient bodies to provide such a service. However we look at the problem of referees, it will always come back to simple numbers - there aren't enough coming into the system.

Very good post and it highlights a lot of issues that most of us won’t really appreciate. It certainly isn’t something that out sport is unique in, you just have to look at football where a ref on £50k a year is trying to officiate players on £200k a week. And with all the finances in the world they still get slaughtered on a weekly basis.
The bottom line is the less we invest into the officials (the same can be said of coaches) the more the standard will either drop or the pool of refs will reduce.
I will be interested to see how the league structure shake up increases / changes the referee pool moving forward as effectively there will be more focus on some of the ‘lower’ league referees.
I suppose the more I think about it, and the further away from game day I get, the more our refs should be applauded for the thankless task they perform.

All your post proves is that you are a bitter fan who wants the referee to be punished for the perceived wrong he has inflicted upon your team. Are you really suggesting that Steve Ganson, our most experienced official and controller of referees, would learn anything whatsoever (in refereeing terms) from being dropped into the lower leagues for two weeks? Really? It's worth noting that this Hull KR fans-led crusade to improve refereeing standards was quite absent after last years Etihad derby. Funny that. Why not admit that what you really want is revenge against the nasty man who 'robbed' your team in your most important game of the season?

Quote ="ScottHKR"Please read the petition linked below, and if you agree and would like to see change, then sign. Thank you. www.ipetitions.com/petition/rlreferees/'" Get over it and move on. Your petition is pathetic and embarrassing. Didn't you also start one once about a mascot being banned?

Quote ="ScottHKR"Please read the petition linked below, and if you agree and would like to see change, then sign. Thank you. www.ipetitions.com/petition/rlreferees/'" Get over it and move on. Your petition is pathetic and embarrassing. Didn't you also start one once about a mascot being banned?

The petition thing may not be the right way to go but it has triggered discussion. I actually thought this was a reasonable debate, (very unusual for RL fans I know) and one worth having. Still you've managed to come along, add nothing and turn it into cross Hull ing contest.

Give over. He's posted his little petition on every board and it's been widely ridiculed. This 'discussion' would never have come about were it not for the Hull and Wigan results.

This.

You may have money for court cases but neither do I or RLFANS.-AS

Roger Lamplough, an old (red & white) friend of mine always reckoned that all referees were sexual deviants because only a deviant would take to a field with 10,000 people all wanting to f*** him

I'm fully behind this campaign, I've signed it at least six times so far.

No my post proves I'm having a debate.
Your post proves that you have taken the position of 'A Hull KR fans opinion=Automatically bad'.
I do wish you would take the specs off but clearly they are glued on so I guess we can give up hope on that.

Oh I agree there is a massive shortage at the bottom end.
But with regard to SL and the championship we have a situation ATM where we don't know if those in the championship are ready as SL seems to be a closed shop.
ALL I'm saying is that the current system isn't healthy for anyone.
We have a situation were a current SL ref is safe to plod on without the real need to try and improve his game and refs in the championship may as well not bother as they have nowhere to go if they do improve.

As a point can anyone remember the last time a ref was demoted permenatly and replaced by a championship(or whatever it was called) ref. The only time refs go up is when a SL ref retires, goes back to the NRL or we expand to 14 teams.

Before anyone bleats about the poor little lambs losing their jobs remind me again what happens when a better player arrives that makes a SL player no longer required in SL. Stuart Littler(Sorry Stuart) and the likes can answer that.

Roby, Hicks, and Child were all refs in the Championship before becoming SL refs, so I don't think the 'closed shop' accusation stands up. The issue may be more that now SL refs are full time it's more complicated to promote a part-time ref who might very well not want to leave his 'day job'.

I agree something needs to be done to increase the supply and competence of officials coming through from the lower leagues so that the current SL incumbents feel under real pressure to perform, but that's been the case for many years and nobody seems to have the first clue how to make it happen. Cummins' biggest failing as controller of referees IMO.

That is my point though as 3 have come up but Smith, Ganson and Klein have 'gone', not demoted but for whatever reason no longer working as an on field ref in the UK. That is a closed shop IMHO.

It was a serious question can anyone remember the last SL ref to be demoted and replaced permanently? I'm struggling to think of one and that includes before they went full time.

All three who came up had had the odd gig in SL when an incumbent SL ref got demoted for a game or two. Klein certainly got dropped once or twice and I think even Ganson did once. Alibert has been conspicuously absent for much of this season although he is reffing us against Salford this week.

Temporary demotions [ido[/i happen. They just need to happen more regularly. But the issue with part time vs full time makes it more difficult now than it used to be.

The larger issues, as I said elsewhere, are availability and training. I don't believe that any ref goes onto the field intending to cock up, so disciplinary demotions are only of use if coupled with training to rectify shortcomings.

One simple, small thing, that might encourage more people to aspire to the role of referee, IMO, is to not to give them kit that would garish at a Brazilian Carnival. Lime green and cerise, with respectively, yellow and blue check.

And that ref cam makes them look like partially assimilated Borg.

Okay, refs are maybe never going to be 'cool', but going out of our way to make them look idiots isn't going to inspire respect.