Like many other footy fans, I was a little surprised when referees’ boss Tony Archer announced a series of adapted methods of utilising officials in the upcoming preseason matches.

The chorus of knockers responded immediately, without, it seems, a serious thought lent to the proposal. Without even watching how it might assist our refs reach higher rates of consistency in this always difficult aspect of our sport, everyone would like to pull it all down.

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Those people who jump in to decry even the announcement of these trials of officiating models reveal their inflexible and know-it-all attitudes. A portion of those people are also the most vocal when poor on-field or video-box decisions are made. Go figure.

I feel for those in charge, who are willing to give something different a try in an honest effort to improve things. But how are those in charge of officiating matches supposed to meet the challenges they face if they are to be howled down when they take positive action towards improvement?

It’s all too easy to say something new won’t work, especially if you then can sit in waiting for the first time a ref or group of refs make a bad call.

Everyone wants a simple answer to problems and I am sure Tony Archer is just like the rest of us on that matter. But it appears that if there is a simple way to improve refereeing standards no one has found it.

Perhaps the solution is complex, unfortunate as that might seem. The 10-member officiating team trialled in the Charity Shield is certainly a target for the negative naysayers, but what is there to lose by taking a brief look at it?

If we take a few minutes to look at the detail in what role each official has it certainly makes sense to me. Bear in mind we already had six officials working at every NRL match last season.



So let’s look at what the four introduced refs will do.

They are all to operate at ground level with two of them as in-goal judges at either end. These officials have played a role in the past when there was no video referee.

There were a number of us who wanted them to stay as part of the crew, even when the video official was introduced.

There are two reasons for their retention. The first is that sometimes the in-goal official has a better look than all of the cameras.

It sounds like a stretch, I know but it does happen, and almost all of what the video ref and in-goal officials deal with relates to point scoring, so there’s bound to be a match deciding call from them at some stage.

So simply by improving the chance to get a call right rather than wrong, or even a better guess from the on-field ref who is currently forced into making his own call prior to the video ref’s inclusion.

The second, I am guessing, is to reduce the use of the video ref, meaningless time spent waiting for the technology to arrive at its conclusion. Again, that would be well worth these re-employments as it could result in speeding up the breaks in the action of the game.

The roles of the other two officials, positioned on the touch lines, is an attempt to have it all when it comes to touchies assisting the men in the middle. In previous decades the touchies were positioned in line with the ruck to make calls on passes, especially from dummy halves.



That was abandoned when their job description made assistance with ruling on the 10 metre defensive line the most important contribution they can make.

So in this model we would have both those aspects covered by the dual positions and from both sides of the field.

The main ref and his assistants will continue in unchanged roles as I understand it.

The roles in the 10 member system seem to make sense and could see that reduction in refereeing errors. The obvious concern is how those refs will manage the communication required.

Let’s see how it goes. You never ever know if you never have a go!