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Time for an end to trial by video
REMEMBER when video referees were introduced?
Wasn't it was meant to be the panacea for all the game's officiating ills?
No more tries that never were, and no more no tries that should have been.
Everything would be there in slow motion black and white for all to see.
Mistakes? A thing of the past.
Except it's not worked out quite like that.
And personally, I've had enough.
So much so that I'd be quite happy if they junked the whole concept.
Over the last few weeks, the men who study the replays have come up with some real howlers.
First, there was Iestyn Harris's 'try' in the Halifax against Featherstone game at Post Office Road, the Wales international - who appeared to be short of the line - looking as surprised as anyone when the score was awarded.
There were a couple more over the weekend too, with Leigh's Andy Hobson and Castleford's Kirk Dixon both receiving the benefit of dubious calls.
But the one that really destroyed my faith in the system was in the first versus second National Rugby League blockbuster between St George and Canterbury.
The Bulldogs, under the tutelage of former Halifax stand off Kevin Moore, looked to have snatched the most dramatic of last-play victories when teenage sensation Jamal Idris finished off a searing Luke Patten break.
Referee Tony Archer referred the score to video ref Steve Clark to check on what turned out to be a non-obstruction in backplay involving Dragons stand off Jamie Soward and the 'Dogs' Greg Eastwood.
But to everyone's surprise, Clark proceeded to scrub a perfectly good try.
Channel Nine's commentating guru Ray Warren said he felt empty, double-Premiership winning summariser Phil Gould dubbed the decision "ridiculous" and even chief referee Robert Finch said he "couldn't defend" the call.
Moore, unsurprisingly, felt "irked".
Consequently, Clark will be sweeping out Finch's office in Sydney this weekend rather than refereeing.
Now, you could argue all day about the rights and wrongs of those decisions.
And plenty more over the last decade and a bit for that matter.
Remember Alan Hadcroft's try for Halifax against York in that horrible 2004 qualifying final at Widnes, for example?
Robert Connolly still isn't welcome in the Minster city as a result.
And that is the point.
If the video referee isn't capable of delivering certainty, why do we bother?
Because the system we have at the moment, where games are held up interminably while we go through incidents frame by frame, again and again and some teams - the ones that appear on telly almost weekly - derive more of the supposed advantage, is a nonsense.
It's not better or worse than what preceded it, just different.
Overall, I reckon we would actually get less controversy if we just gave some responsibility back to the man with the whistle.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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