Refereeing is a job where, as someone may have said, you must start out perfect and become better each day.
It’s a reason very few footballers retire and become referees. Yet the sons of former Penrith halfback John Klein and Parramatta winger Graeme Atkins are two of the NRL’s leading whistleblowers and are likely to officiate in the big end-of-season games.
Perhaps there is a form of genetic voodoo, or an inherited masochism that makes Ashley Klein and Grant Atkins take up a calling where, given the rule changes since the era of their fathers, there are approximately 40 occasions in a game where they could make the wrong decision.
Stealing the ball in the tackle; moving too quickly from marker; encroaching the 10-metre line in defence; grounding the ball for a try … in many cases these are 50:50 decisions.
Remember when most tries were scored with the ball forced cleanly over the line? It’s more usual today for the referee to have to adjudicate whether the ball was grounded under a pile of bodies. Or, given the sublime skills of the flying flankmen, whether the ball was forced over the try line within millimetres of the corner post.
If contentious decisions are 50:50 when made within milliseconds on the field, they often remain so at post-match review sessions. Controversial calls are peer reviewed, that is, fellow referees view them in classrooms and then declare whether their colleague was right or wrong. It’s not unusual for the vote to be 50:50, with half the referees endorsing the decision and half saying it was wrong.
Leading referees Ashley Klein and Grant Atkins are both sons of former first-graders and look set to feature deep into September.Credit:Getty
The same applies to bunker decisions which are made with the benefit of a multitude of camera angles and more time. Bunker rulings on obstruction take so long, the pot plants in the corporate suites at stadiums have time to germinate, sprout leaves, take out mortgages, wither and die. Yet reviews of these decisions also often result in 50:50 splits.
This ambivalence is evident in the captain’s challenge which sometimes ends with the bunker unable to rule either way, resulting in the referee’s decision being upheld but the dissenting team not losing its challenge.
When coaches review games, they find numerous examples where their team was punished for erring, yet the opposition was unpunished in identical circumstances.
If there are approximately 40 contentious decisions per match during the regular NRL season, it doubles during the play-offs when the intensity rises.
Captains remonstrating with officials has come to resemble a committee meeting as attacking sides have their momentum blunted and the defence has time to reset.Credit:Getty
The Roosters’ last two regular season games were exceptionally intense, a harbinger of what is to come beginning Friday with the Panthers-Eels qualifying final. The round 24 and 25 Roosters matches drew 18 penalties each, compared to 13 in the Raiders’ 56-10 humiliation of Wests Tigers on Sunday.
Yet the number of occasions where the referee could have signalled six-again in the Roosters matches was far greater than the four awarded in the one-sided match. Hotly contested games produce hotly disputed decisions. The referee becomes dragged into the match more, putting him clearly in the spotlight. The team on the wrong side of the decision invariably believes they were wronged. Technology is a great aid to the referee and while the bunker ruling may quieten the crowd, it will not necessarily placate the players. Freeze-frame technology can give the impression there was separation between hand and ball in the act of scoring a try. Yet the player would insist that, in real time, he never yielded control of the ball.
Compounding the multitude of contentious decisions a referee is forced to make is the frustration arising from the increasing practice of time-wasting. Captains seek to stop the momentum of teams by engaging with the referee in what becomes a committee meeting. They are entitled to question a decision but not to argue once informed. Younger referees allow senior captains too much courtesy. Meanwhile, the defence sets itself, and the attack rues the lost opportunity.
Time-wasting existed in the era of Klein and Atkins snr but the practice of influencing referees via the media was in its infancy.
Over the past decade, it has become an avenue for agenda-driven keyboard coshers, and it requires a seasoned referee to ignore it.
In the same way the good teams will progress through the four weeks of finals, so should the more objective referees.
