Quote: ROBINSON "ONE referee is adequate. if it's good enough for SL and the international game, then it's good enough for the ockers.
Instead, more power should be devolved to the touch judges. What's to stop them looking for the offside, whilst the referee watches the PTB? They're miked up, so it's not as if they can't communicate, is it?'"
As a ref, I absolutely agree with this. There are already 3 pairs of eyes on the pitch. For me, the areas where I'm likely to miss things or make errors are twofold :
1) When I'm blindsided. Eg - the ball-carrier hits the deck with his back and a tackler between me and the ball. The ball comes loose. I have no way of knowing whether it's ripped or lost, so I always give lost on the grounds that it's the ball-carrier's responsibility to hold on to the ball. Some of those I must be getting wrong. On the rare occasions when touch judges are present, those errors vanish because there's someone watching the blindside.
2) At the PTB. The ref has to do two task at the PTB which require him to look in separate places : the PTB itself to watch for knock-ons, lazy arms etc, and the defensive line to check for offside. Long experience has told me that you have to watch the PTB when it's actually played. But that means you cannot effectively police offside unless you either happen to be right at the side of the pitch so you can see the whole line. Again, if I had a wired-up touchjudge wo could see the whole line, he can simply say "offside 4" in the earpiece, and I can go penalise the centre who's sneaked up on my blindside.
In all other cases, such as a melee on the field, you can call in your touch judges and consult to try and produce the most accurate picture.
Basically, this isn't rocket science. The ref can still retreat 10 metres, but keep his eyes fixed on the PTB knowing the touchies are keeping the players honest. The touchies also watch the tackle so that all angles are covered. I just don't see why we need an extra ref on the field.