At the start of the season, the NRL and its referees decided to kill Rugby League.
Sorry, they decided to crack down on the ruck, play-the-ball and offside infringements. This saw all games being heavily penalised. The game between the Sharks and Storm had a whopping 33 penalties. The sabotage was on!
This barrage of penalties was killing Rugby League, if you ignore the increase in crowds and TV ratings. It was adamantly clear that the crackdown was not for the betterment of Rugby League, but purely for referees to take centre stage and become famous. Because it’s well-known everyone wants to become hated and abused everywhere they go. It’s a natural desire of the human condition.
While it would have been easy for players to change their methods and abide within the rules of the game, this is just not feasible. Players are told what to do by coaches. Coaches are trying to win. If referees can’t buy into that system, then their only motive must be self-seeking fame and glory.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
The referees were criticised for not using the sin bin enough. This was the solution to the penalty bonanzas.
So they reigned in the penalty barrage and upped the ante on sin bin use, with one round producing 14 binnings alone.
This was just another sign of officialdom going crazy. To top it off, the boss of the NRL and Rugby League terrorist Todd Greenberg, asked his referees to reign in the penalties and sin-binnings.
The referees then threatened to ruin State of Origin. The players and coaches prepared for the refs to ruin Origin. Then on game night, the refs called just 5 penalties, therefore ruining Origin.
After the second State of Origin game, the referees found a new menace that threatens to kill Rugby League dead again.
The rules.
Heaven forbid, they enforce the rules?!
In the Round 16 contest between Penrith and Manly, there were 197 knock-ons and even more scrums, resulting in a punishing bore of a game that resembled Rugby Union.
The archaic rules, probably written up in some bygone era where dinosaurs ruled the earth, enforced by the spotlight thieving referees, desperately need an overhaul.
If there were more on-field officials in the game, it would be harder for them all to be the centre of attention.
It’s also time that penalties, sin bins, scrums and knock-ons were all eliminated from the game.
Given so many tries come from kicks, why not also get rid of tries and just have scoring from kicks.?
No one understands the obstruction and offside rules, so abolish those as well.
Hang on a second…