fevnut's musings
Match
Officials Encourage Cheating
We are not
of the ilk that thinks that everything was rosier in times gone by. In general,
the game has got faster, handling more skilful and players are much fitter than
when we started to watch the game.
But we do
long to have the clock turned back with respect to one element of today’s game.
It regards ‘cheating’ and the huge role that match officials play in actually
encouraging this to happen.
Penalties should
be something that a team gains because of an indiscretion by their opponents.
We are sick and tired of the game being spoilt because of players ‘winning’
penalties. This is occurring predominantly around the play-the-ball which has
become a total mess and farce. It sometimes feels as if the player playing the
ball and the dummy half are more intent on winning a penalty than getting on
with the game.
Amongst the
tactics we have seen recently are:
1)
Holding the tackling player down
making it impossible for him to clear the ruck
2)
Stepping over the tackling player and
then heeling the ball into him
3)
The dummy half deliberately throwing
the ball at an opposition player who is making every attempt to clear the ruck
area
All of these are cheating in our eyes and being
encouraged by the match officials who seem to be acting with total blindness to
who is the perpetrator.
In our match last week at Bradford we almost stood
up and applauded the referee for awarding a penalty against Fev when our dummy
half totally unnecessarily through the ball at a retreating Bradford player.
Well done, Mr. Rossleigh!
The frequency with which attempts to win penalties
at the play-the-ball are rewarded leads us to think that referees are under
strict instructions to apply an interpretation of the rules that is manifestly
unjust and a big blot on the spirit of rugby league. It is turning our sport
into a charade akin to the frequent blatant cheating which is rife in football.
And it isn’t just the play-the-ball which is the
problem. We are now seeing increasing examples of players winning penalties by
creating an apparent obstruction. We believe that penalties should only be
awarded for obstruction when a player is obstructed and that affects the outcome
of the play.
Last week we saw an appalling decision on
television in the Catalans match against Hull. A decision which ultimately cost
Catalans the win. Matt Whitley scored a good try for Catalans and the referee
referred it to the video referee, rather bafflingly, as a no try. Watching the
video replays you see Greg Bird acting as a dummy runner doing as he should and
running through the gaps in the defensive line. But a Hull player moves towards
him so that Bird just brushes his shoulder (no more) and the Hull player throws
his arms in the air to claim that he has been obstructed. It seems to us
impossible to come to any conclusion other than the Hull player is creating a
very slight obstruction on himself and that anyway it made absolutely no
difference to whether Whitley would have scored or not. It was a prime example
of simulation and it is very sad that referees are encouraging this sort of
behaviour which is nothing other than cheating.
The fact that the video referee backed up the
on-field referee again leads us to believe that it is not rogue decision by a
particular ref but that they are acting upon instructions given to them by the
match officials department at the RFL.
Recently the ‘Backchat’ programme had Steve Ganson
(who is head of the Match Officials Department) on the programme. We think they
should get him back on and really challenge the way the ‘interference’ and ‘obstruction’
rules are being interpreted. It has to be changed before our sport is ruined.
Dane Chisholm
Ben Reynolds has returned to Wakefield
after his loan spell at Fev and now we have the news that we have taken Dane
Chisholm on loan from Bradford. It’s potentially good news and the best part is
that it is a season long loan so we hope it might end the constant chopping and
changing in the pivotally important area of halfback.
It is somewhat curious that Bradford
have let a player with as much quality as Dane Chisholm go. But we all know
that John Kear is a very wily coach and we can have a guess at why he might
have allowed Chisholm to come to us.
We haven’t spoken to John Kear and we
are not mind-readers so this is complete speculation. But here goes. Bradford
are currently playing Rowan Milnes (Age 21) and Jordan Lilley (age 22) in the
halves. We would suggest that neither are as effective as Dane Chisholm YET but
maybe, just maybe, Kear is looking to the future with this halfback pairing and
the way for them to develop both individually and as a partnership is to give
them the experience of playing together on a regular basis.
If we are correct then it is an
example of looking to the future which seems o be something that Fev desperately
need. Looking to the future is really not compatible with fielding teams that
are so heavily made up of dual reg and loan players.
We hope that Dane Chisholm settles in
quickly at Fev and is able to play to his potential because, should he do so,
it will make a real difference to the creativity in the Fev team. He has a
record of scoring better than a try every two games, a goal kicking success
rate of 73% and he has a proven record of kicking drop goals. His full playing
record has now been incorporated into the ‘Player Stats: 2019 Squad’ page of
this blog.
Reserves
Yet again, last Thursday,
our reserves team produced a terrific performance to beat Hull FC who were
previously unbeaten. There is a report of the match on this blog at
If you are a Fev fan you really ought to be getting along to
watch our reserves. They are away at Keighley on May 8th and the next home game
is at home to Bradford on May 22nd. They were well beaten by Bradford in March
but it will be very interesting to see how far the spirit and experience of the
team have been improved by the wins over Wakefield and Hull.
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