Quote: Clearwing "
I dislike the whole VR thing full stop. But if we must have it, then there are real weaknesses surrounding the on-field decisions of try/no try. I suspect Thaler went to the VR for McGuire's try under the illusion that TV evidence would confirm or refute his on-field decision. The fact that it did neither meant that his decision stood. There's a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that Thaler had no clear idea whatsoever as to whether a knock-on had actually taken place.'"
I think this is actually the reason the ref making a decision needs to stay - as we don't have the video ref at every game, what would have happened if this incident happened in a non-televised game? The ref still wouldn't have had a clear idea, but would have been forced to make a decision in conjunction with his touch judges etc, so the outcome would have been the same - try.
By making the ref make a call - where it's a 50/50, it means the VR or lack of a VR doesn't alter the decision, the on field ref needs to make a call on the evidence he has to hand, and only if that can be proven to be wrong should it be over turned. Those who say a ref shouldn't have to 'guess' when he doesn't know for sure - what would he do in a non-televised game?
Also, by making the refs give a decision, tangible MI can be produced to see which refs get the most calls wrong, and the RFL can then work with each individual ref to find out why they got it wrong and learn from it (it could be bad positioning etc). What would be good to know is the numbers on this for the season - which ref sent the most decisions up to the VR, which ref was overturned the most/least - is there any variances based on potential team bias etc.... Using this system, there's lots of data that could be analysed - I doubt this data will be made available to the fans though.
