Quote: Andy Gilder "Interesting that cricket gets brought into the discussion. Aren't an overwhelming majority of first class cricket umpires guys who have played the game to at least county level and can therefore have a bit of empathy with the players?
How many of the current crop of full-time match officials have played the game at pro or semi-pro level?
While I appreciate the physical demands of the sports are vastly different, could part of the issue that rugby and football have with match officials be that by having mandatory retirement ages they reduce the opportunities for ex-pros to progress through the ranks as match officials?'"
I think it's more that cricket has always had the spirit of the game ethos, right since the 'Gentlemen and Players' era when professionals (players) were allowed to compete so long as the spirit of the game was upheld. Also, perhaps more obviously, the convention applied to all participants in the game - both umpires and the players, so that everyone was singing from the same hymm sheet so to speak.The more general 'sportsmanship' or 'fair play', applied to other sports, does not seem to do the job - especially when serious money enters the sport alla football. It is noticeable that a game like cricket has no shortage of areas a cynical team could exploit in order to win yet examples what might be termed underhand tactics (Trevor Chappell's underarm ball, etc) are held in such disregard that they are not repeated, and most importantly do not become ingrained in the game itself, as in football with diving for example.
Of course RL is a very different sport to cricket and is thankfully not afraid to change it's ruleset. This is one of many reasons why it is a far superior sport than professional Rugby Union which is intransigent and is a sport where underhand and cynical tactics are allowed to prevail over more honest styles of play. However as the discussion is about the referee's role within this, it really is quite simple for even a simple minded person(i.e. a referee) to follow: They just need to take a moment to assess whether a team has been infringed enough to warrant blowing the whistle. Was that last tackle against the spirit of the game - deliberate and designed to hurt the player, or was it simply an honest tackle that looked worse than it was. That kind of thing. In this case it probably would help if the refs had some playing experience but it should not be necessary. Most of us watching on TV (from a neutral point of view, not when our team is playing!) can call the game pretty well, we know a player's intentions, etc and we know when there has been a tackle so bad that you cannot use discretion. It's not rocket science, even for a referee!
