Staggering NRL data has revealed the huge number of decisions referees make in every game — and just how few they get wrong.
One of the NRL’s top referees, Grant Atkins, opened up on the challenges they face each week and the work being done to minimise mistakes.
Atkins has officiated 232 NRL games, 19 Test matches, and worked as the video referee during the 2021 and 2022 grand finals.
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After every game, referees are given detailed feedback on their performance through video analysis of their decisions.
According to NRL data, referees make around 8500 decisions per game – about 105 per minute – and they get less than 0.0588 per cent of those calls wrong.
“From play the ball to play the ball, from the ball being brought into play, to the pick-up, then are markers square, to every pass and pass reception, whether it is a knock on or knocked back,” Atkins said to foxsports.com.au.
“Then into the tackle, whether the tackle is high, dangerous or late, into then the speed of the tackle, into whether the ball is brought into play correctly, into the next play the ball.
“You are looking at on average about 30 passive decisions, then there’s anywhere between 270 to 300 play the balls per game.
“Up to 30 passive decisions, with about 285 play the balls per game, it equates to a lot, around 8500 decisions per game.
“We are sitting at around five or six errors per game, in all of those passive decisions… these are decisions that a referee has to make every time the ball is played, until the next tackle.”
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In almost any job, that error rate wouldn’t even be noticed — but with millions of eyeballs watching their every move, one bad decision in the NRL can see refs heavily scrutinised.
Atkins revealed the NRL’s team of officials are working to reduce their error margin.
“The biggest thing about us as officials in the NRL, we work extremely hard to one, identify and admit those errors have occurred,” Atkins said.
“Then work out what is it we need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again next week.
“Naturally things will happen again, but as long as you keep reviewing the process and work out why I got it wrong, and how can I do it better, I think we will see continual improvement each week.”
“You are never going to reduce errors to the point of 100 per cent accuracy.
“It’s near impossible, but the challenge is you want to make sure that number stays at a very low amount.
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“And some games are simpler than others, some games have a whole range of contested decisions and other games there are very few times when the ball goes to ground, or very few kicks contested in the air.
“When there’s less of them, there’s less chance of errors.”
Atkins said most decisions are made through “muscle memory” but emphasised small errors can be difficult to spot in the speed of battle.
“A lot of those things are muscle memory and experience of referees,” Atkins said.
“If the dummy-half was to pass to first receiver and it was passed back, that’s quite an easy decision to make.
“Most of the decisions we make in those passive decisions are quite easily ticked off and quite obvious that they are okay to play on.
“The challenging decisions are ones where there is contested possessions, contests in the air, tackles where there is collision and there’s a tiny bobble of the ball.
“And to be honest, they are only generally seen upon replay.”
