Quote: sergeant pepper "Ok, I forgot they are completely blameless in all of this.
Nothing like circling the wagons and protecting your own.'"
He's 99% right though
But you hit on an interesting point, You hear me about over complicating stuff etc. when it comes to rules etc.
As soon as you go Full time then the people involved will suddenly find themselves filling that time with more and more of what they do and over complicating it to justify their Full time status.
Now whilst not suggesting that Part-Time for everything is better, there is a Negative side to "Full-Time"
If a referee trained 4 hrs a week he would focus on the basics, referee the game as he sees to the rules
Currently they are analysing stuff 40/50/60hrs a week - In itself no bad thing
But couple that with Coaches who instead of training twice a week for a couple of hours, are now working 14hr days with 10 backroom staff coming up with Minute detail for every aspect of the game, trying to gain that 1%, pushing the rules etc. to the limit whilst referees and rule makers are sat at the other end of the argument looking for ways to nullify anyone trying gain these advantages and suddenly we have a far too Technical environment
In parallel we have as you suggest, both sides of the argument blaming the other when in reality both sides are as big a part of the problem.
You spend 100hrs a week prepping for a game and the slightest thing going against you will Pee you off
You spend 40/50hrs a week prepping to officiate a game and your head could be filled up with all sorts and not what is blatantly obvious/common sense in front of you.
Was never a big fan of the disciplinary changes brought in 10 years or so ago with Grading of charges and minimum/maximum bans for certain grades etc.
We now have people scouring every second of every game multiple times looking for the smallest of things, and then we sit them down and grade them and hamstring people into bracketing situations and defining them into almost pre-determined punishments.
And what do we get at the end of the day? Exactly the same amount of moaning and disagreement about disciplinary issues that we always had.
This is not me giving an answer, just my frustration that, and I admit they are working hard to counter a lot of the coaching/players trying to stretch and bend the rules, that the lawmakers and enforcers already had every tool available needed in their armoury to deal with the situations.
Penalise teams who play act, time waste etc.
Sin bin players who are continually pushing the limits etc.
A few years ago Wakey got to retake a kick at goal at our place after a missed conversion as the Wigan players had advanced over the line.
I'd been saying for years that I'd penalise teams (And Wigan IMO were worse than anyone at the time) for encroaching at a kick. If any player steps over the line Before the ball is kicked at a conversion I'd penalise them and kick under the sticks.
Drop outs - although I like the shot clock it seems refs are prepared to stop the shot clock for fear of having to give a penalty. Lets not forget, when teams were messing about and taking 2mins to take a drop out, we had numerous rule changes brought in before the shot clock to deal with it.
First of all, if you throw the ball away the clock stops, so teams threw the bal back towards the sticks nowhere near the intended kicker and it still took 2mins.
Then the referees started to stop the clock when teams were messing about dropping out, so the team who are messing about get what they actually want which is 2minutes rest before kicking out.
Then we bring in shot clock - Which is ok - But the deterrent was there all along - Just Penalise them
Wigan for a number of years were the worst in the league at scrums - packing down with 5, player comes from other side of field and half way across a player in the scrum that's already one short comes out the scrum and new player goes in and they still only have 5 - Referee stops clock, players mess about for another 20 seconds all the while knowing what they're doing and eventually 2mins later they take the scrum.
Again the Scrum clock helped, but just penalise them
And fans really have a massive part to play
Moaning about obstructions 10 years ago so we write and re-write over and over again "Rules" about catching a ball on inside shoulder or outside shoulder or close to the line stood away from the line etc.etc.. because they want "Consistancy".
Were still no better off and IMO there's as much complaining if not more now than there was 30 years ago. becaue no-one can keep up with referees, lawmakers tweaking the rules and we don't know what they've done because whilst they're full time coming up with all of this most people re working and just want to go to the pub and watch the game in an uncomplicated way.
In a strange way fans and their frustrations as I am talking about with Full time coaches/players/officials & suffer the same because of 24hr social media - Old days, you'd chat with a bloke at work, or have a pint down the pub and agree/disagree over a decision that 9/10 wasn't on the telly to be watched/rewatched a thousand times, and people got on with things (Apart from people with chips on shoulders complaining each team gets the rub of the green, which still happens).
Now, every second is on TV, every second is watched and rewatched thousands of times by thousands of people.
Peoples opinions are everywhere (And I get the irony) and fans read, respond and get worked up over the tiniest little things over and over again.
As the old poet used to say "The public gets what the public wants" and we have to be careful what we wish for.
Anyway - We carry on
