The 2 Ref System....?

Nah I don't like it,There are too many discrepancies between the two refs.

Two refs twice the amount of penalties and seriously I have seem some of the softest penalties ever.

Its making the game a soft,we may as well watch soccer, Nah I would'nt go that far but you know what I mean.

How good was the Test on friday night with the one referee?

Yes you are right, at the start l thought it would work well, but it is not playing out that way.

The 2-referee system was innovative but it relied upon finding 16 referees who were worthy of First Grade status at a point where the NRL was struggling to come up with 8 every weekend.

The two-ref system has forced them to bring in too many rookies at once ... Alan Shortall, Brett Suttor, Phil Haines etc.

Of course it's not surprising refs only have about 100 games between them given that Hayne and Archer are the only ones over the 100 mark themselves.

Robinson's in the 90s and there are many refs who have done 60 or 70 games - Steve Lyons, Ben Cummins, Jared Maxwell, Gavin Badger etc. There is no purpose having the two-ref system if they are going to put two of the rookies togther - it may have worked if they were going to have a relatively experienced ref with a rookie but that too may be pushing it.

I'm not sick of the 2 ref system per se, it did seem to speed up the game initially but it now seems to me that now that there are 2 refs out there that they have the time and vision to watch out for the slightest indiscretions ( by the letter of the law) and are penalising them. I think the refs need to remember the principle of applying the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. They need to understand that their job is to ensure a fair contest and that the game flows, to often they seem to be preoccupied with nit picking about the most trivial technical offence and penalising. They don't seem to grasp the idea that penalties have a massive impact on the result of a game. The 2 ref system is still a good idea if the refs were to apply some commonsense and as i said adjudicate by the spirit of the law and not by the letter of the law.

At the start of the season I half jokingly said "two referees, twice as amny mistakes". Unfortunately, yhis does look the case. From what I saw of Friday night's games they went well going back to only having one ref on the field.

That Newcastle/GC game was a terrible advertisement for two refs. For the Walker try, I have seen this given on plenty of occasions but on the weekend it was no try. Also why no penalty? The Knights number 3 comes in feet first to clean up the ball. Hasn't anyone told the three referees in this game about this. It was brought in because this is what Slater had been doing.

Watching the Super 14 games, the South African referees are better than what we have for league and believe me they are the pitts.

Look first of all id like to say im a supporter of the 2 referee system in part because it has made the game so much faster and therefore much more exciting. The problems i do have however are as follows:

1) Too many penalties! I mean they want to speed up the ruck but it seems if you hold a player down for a split second its a penalty and penalties are crucial and often lead to tries. Id hate to think the referees are going to award so many penalties come SoO. Please refs just let the boys play for godsake and forget about the fact that he was held down for a split second too long.

2) The rules that are in place give referees too much discretion which leads to many grey areas which makes me SOOO angry. Just make clear cut rules and take referee discretion out of it! For example the floating forward pass rule. You see the commentators looking at so many replays saying "it floated forward but went back out of the hands". That rule just causes grey areas. Why not just make the rule "if it goes forward, regardless of floating forward, then its a forward pass". And that is just ONE example but there are many more eg. obstruction, tap forward rule (hayne a couple weeks ago compared to lyon yesterday.

3) Also the fact that players cant put pressure on the kicker anymore.

4) Finally whats with this "separation" rule with ball grounding. What happened to "downward pressure". Ive seen the worst tries awarded using this new ruling this season and last. And once again it comes down to discretion.

If the NRL doesnt fix some of these problems and more people are going to stop watching. Sorry about the long rant but i just love this game SOO MUCH and it pains me to see what the NRL board is doing to this beautiful beautiful game.

There seems to be TOO many penalties now, you get penalised for a stray arm, penalised for not playing the ball 1 degree to the left, and penalised because you breathed in too much oxygen in your last tackle.

It's a bit of a joke, there wasn't much wrong with the one ref system. And sometimes the refs have different decisions.. if I was a player that would be very annoying.

Agreed. In theory it should improve the game but practically speaking the decision making has been far worse since they changed it. 2 refs, a touch judge, and a third umpire, and they still can't get it right.

Keep it simple and just go back the having 1 ref i reckon.

Too many cooks..... I reckon we go back to 1 Ref and get the video ref to be more pro active, he shouldn't have to wait for the on field ref to ask for an adjudication, if he sees a penalty he should call it straight away

Advantages: Faster game

Disadvantages: Refs call bad decisions.

I'd hate to be a ref!

I agreed with Michael, was good at first but I was also really disappointed after the broncos against sea eagles game, I'm really amazed at the decision of the video ref, he got time to think n act n still get it sooo wrong!! I wonder whether he is watching the same game as all of us!