THE howler that ended in Chris Lawrence’s try on Friday night would never have surfaced if the NRL used a simpler, more sensible alternative to its video refereeing system.

It is time for change.

James Tedesco was doing his best on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show when he tried to insist that when he touched the ball, which was rolling forward as he was chasing after it, it went backwards ­before finding Lawrence.

The best Brad Fittler and company could do was laugh and say nothing. If Tedesco was right, then everything we know about physics is wrong.

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Why continue with this system when there is a better alternative? The NRL needs to take away the decision to refer a try to the video referee from the referee and give it to the players.

Every team gets two challenges and only the captain can challenge the referee’s decision. Right now, the video referee is killing one of the great moments in the game, the theatre of the try.

There used to be nothing better than a player crashing over and a collective holding of the breath going through the crowd as all eyes turned to the referee for his decision.

Now, that energy dies a slow death as the referee makes the safe call to go to the video referee and we all find a distraction for the next two minutes while the video referee figures out what happened.

A challenge system is the way to go. There are four possible ­alternatives for every try, so it works this way:

● REFEREE awards a try and it is a try: then we’re all happy, neither side challenges because they won’t want to sacrifice a challenge for a frivolous call. We get on with the game.

● REFEREE awards no try and it is no try: again, we’re all happy. And again, we quickly get on with the game.

● REFEREE awards a try and the defending team believes it held the player up, or he knocked it on, or there was some other reason it should not be awarded: in these cases the defenders will tell their captain to challenge. The onus is on the defence to make the call.

● REFEREE awards no try when the attacking team believes it scored: the captain talks to his try-scorer who says he got the ball down, or didn’t fumble the kick ahead, disputing whatever call the referee made, and they send it upstairs.

By limiting it to two unsuccessful challenges per game, teams won’t get frivolous with their challenges. It encourages an honesty system among the players.

Challenges are used in the NFL, cricket and tennis, and work best when the onus is on the competitors to ­decide when to go upstairs.

media_camera The NRL is set to introduce a “referee's bunker” to review all contentious decisions during a game. Picture: Gregg Porteous

The reason is simple: in ­almost every case, the players know if it was a try or not.

It will dramatically reduce the number of times we go to the video referee which, right now, is killing the game. Where the video referee was once seen as a novel addition, fans are now irritated by it.

The game is slowing to snail’s pace.

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Last year about 1400 tries were scored in the NRL.

About 700 were sent upstairs to the video referee. ­Officially, it was 49 per cent.

That is frighteningly high and underlines the lack of confidence among the whistleblowers. They see the video referee as a safety net and I will argue that many tries are still being sent upstairs even when they are sure of the decision, just to be safe.

Of those 700 sent upstairs last year, the video referee overturned the onfield decision just 14 per cent of the time.

media_camera It’s time to give the power to the players. Picture: Mark Evans

So, of 1400 tries, the onfield referee got it wrong about 100 times. While that sounds like a lot, it is really about one every two games.

Under a challenge system, it makes sense that those 100 tries would be the only time — when the players’ dispute the referee’s onfield call — that the decision is referred upstairs.

So under this system we could shift to a point where, conceivably, the video referee is used about once every two games instead of three to four times in every game.

And, in essence, nothing changes to what we have now as far as the accuracy of the decision.

Some will say the NRL already uses a challenge system in the under-20s competition, with mixed results. The difference here is a challenge can only be made on tries, not strips and knock-ons like they do in the 20s. It needs to happen.

While technology is good, it should not come at the ­expense of the sport.