Referee Merit System

[Fushitsusha]

So what does everyone think of this new merit system of refereeing that has been introduced to the Super 14 this year?

While it might be nice to have a higher quality of referees I definitely think we'll be losing some impartiality, and the whole thing is going to cause a shitstorm with coaches.

There's no doubt that Sydney based referee Stuart Dickinson overlooked a number of incidents in the Waratahs game against the Hurricanes last week, and Chiefs fans will be delighted to know that he'll also be looking after their game against the Tahs this weekend.

Reds' coach Phil Mooney has already lodged a complaint against South African referee Marius Jonker for not penalising the Bulls for tackling Reds' players in the air.

There were three matches from the weekend that were interstate clashes and involved referees from the respective country, however, out of the other 4 games the referee came from the same nation as the winning team. It'll be interesting to see what happens with these statistics as the tournament goes on.

 

[monkeypigeon]

Question from Ignorant Nortern Hemisphere guy:

How does the system work?

 

[Fushitsusha]

Instead of having a referee from an impartial country to oversee matches, SANZAR have introduced a 'merit panel' of 9 referees that include four South Africans, three Australians and two New Zealanders.

 

[Boggle]

In all honesty, I think people are going to over react.

There are 1 or 2 refs I really don't like at the moment, but they're all professionals, the thing is, if a referee refs a game against 2 of his own teams, or 2 foreign teams everyone would just call him blind, stupid, an ass or whatever for missing something.

If however he's reffing a game between some of his countrymen and another team people are going to start shouting "cheat" and throwing the words "biased" and "partial" around a lot. I'm fine with the system, a referee is a referee, they all get rated after every game and with the new merit system it should make any biased reffing even less of a problem.

 

[An Tarbh]

well we've something similar in the Magners League where in certain matches the ref comes from the same country as the away team with the same setup for the reverse fixture. I don't think there's been any major issue with it.