Referees – you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them!

Well, you couldn’t have a match of any kind without a referee, it would just be a free-for-all.  So you have to have them, and on the whole in rugby league they do a pretty good job.  They work extremely hard during a match, apparently running an average of about 10k per match,and more often than not they are in the right position to judge whether or not an infringement has occurred.  Usually they have the respect of the players even though they may not agree with decisions made.  Of course the fans hate them, but that is just in the nature of being a fan, anything which goes against your team is obviously wrong!

But I do feel that the penalty count has gone crazy this year.  In the Bradford v st Helen’s match on Friday the penalty count was 19 -6 in St Helen’s favour.  I’m not sure that was fair in itself, but the fact is there were 25 penalties in the game, which slows the game and makes it frustrating and irritating for players and spectators.  Sometimes there have been as many as 28 penalties in a game. Obviously there are occasions when players try to milk a penalty, and occasions when there should be a penalty and it is missed, but on the whole surely it would be better for the game if the referees could be slightly less picky and the game could flow more readily.

The favourite infringement this year seems to be defenders in front of the referee when they are waiting for play to recommence after a tackle is completed.  Apparently they are supposed to have both feet behind the official.  We are now x rounds into the competition, and the penalty count for that transgression has not reduced at all.  Surely it is time to take a more relaxed view of that particular rule?  I watched a game recently (was it the challenge cup quarter final between Bradford and Hull FC) where the referee (Richard Silverwood) seemed to decide to take a hard line from the first minute on the offside rule, and play was continually stopped, with the inevitable sin-binning of a player from each side.  It meant that there was no free-flowing play, and the first half was consequently the worst half of a rugby league match I have ever seen. The Guardian  comments on this year’s stringent enforcement of the rules, and subsequent reduction in enjoyment of the game, in a recent article.

I do believe, however, that it is vital for the referee to ensure there is discipline on the field.  For instance, I’m certainly not in favour of players talking back to the referee.  Chris Thorman was sin-binned on Sunday for back chat, and Luke Robinson was sent off for using foul language, and that’s fair enough, it’s supposed to be a family sport, and whatever we think of the refs, they have to be in charge and be seen to take a firm line.  But there is a difference between a firm line and being officious, and I think that referees often confuse the two. This weekend we have seen two full-on battles in rugby league matches, at Leeds v Harlequins and Wakefield v Huddersfield. I know it’s a high-octane sport and players get very pumped up, but it’s the referee’s job to ensure discipline on the field, and fights occur when players get frustrated, often with the decisions of the referee.

Refereeing must be a very difficult job, you are always in the wrong with both sets of fans, and it must take someone pretty thick-skinned to do it.  They do need to be supported even if their decisions are wrong, and on the whole the six full-time refs seem to do a pretty good job of getting it right most of the time.  But if only they could do their job without being quite so whistle-happy, I would be much more satisfied with their performance.

 

Can McNamara Stay?

In my last post I talked about the recent sackings of superleague coaches, and I was inclined to the view that it doesn’t really solve any problems.

However, further thought and the events of the past week have made me review that opinion. For a start, Warrington lifted their game for Jimmy Lowes the caretaker coach at the weekend to beat Harlequins, who have been playing well this season. Matt King, who has been a major under-achiever at Wolves, scored one of the tries and set up another. Hull FC, now coached by Richard Agar, beat Bradford convincingly in the Challenge Cup quarter-final, and played pretty well against St Helen’s and Leeds. Both Warrington and Hull still have significant injury problems, but were able to come up with victories nevertheless. We don’t yet know how Huddersfield will respond to the sacking of Jon Sharpe, as they have had a couple of weeks off, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see significant improvement when they play next weekend.

Which brings me to Bradford, as surely Steve McNamara must be looking anxiously over his shoulder at the moment.  Bradford too have serious injury problems, most importantly to Paul Deacon and Glenn Morrison, and they have struggled ever since those two were sidelined.   In this week’s League Weekly Emily Parker expresses the view that McNamara is unlikely to be sacked, due to the fact that he is popular with the Board, and that Bradford did not spend money on big-name signings (once again due to the Harris saga and the possibly payment of costs) so presumably there is less that can be achieved by them.  I have a problem with this second view, as that seems to imply that the Board and coach never expected Bradford to do well this year, and were in fact resigned to be second-rate this year.  The knock-on effect of that, however, would be that the fans would become disillusioned and desert the club, which does in fact seem to be happening if the 8,400 crowd yesterday (the lowest by far this season) is anything to go by.  Then there will be no income to pay for any big signings in the future, and the club will never be able to break back into the top echelons of the sport.  The play-offs themselves bring in much needed revenue to clubs, and if Bradford don’t get into the top six that will be a major loss for them.  Peter Hood, the Bradford Chairmand, writes encouragingly in today’s Bradford Telegraph and Argus that better times will be coming.  I’m just not sure that the club can look to the long term if it loses a large part of its fan-base in the meantime.

Leaving that aside, I am still not convinced of McNamara’s credentials.  It seems to me that since he took over, when the crunch has come the Bulls has failed to achieve.  Granted he has had a difficult time, taking over in the middle of the season with a side which was not of his making, and then losing Stuart Fielden to Wigan soon afterwards.  He has also lost Leslie Vainikolo, who was a great crowd-pleaser even when not at his best, and will soon lose Shontayne Hape, another very popular player (though one who has done almost nothing this year, he seems to be coasting along waiting for June 30 to come).  Iestyn Harris is a spent force and it must be a great relief that he is out of contract at the end of the season. The worry over how much might have to be paid out to settle that courtcase must have restricted spending on players.

But I still think back to the play-offs last season, when Bradford squandered a 30-6 lead over Wigan and crashed out 31-30.  I remember seeing 3 important players taken off (I think they were Lynch, Solomona and McKenna, but I can’t be sure) and thinking that was a bit unwise, so soon after the start of the second half.  It turned out to be an impossibly foolish decision for a coach to have made, I think McNamara thought he was home and dry and could afford to rest some players for the following week.  Up to that point I was very up-beat about having a new young British coach in charge, but my belief in his judgement was seriously damaged by that decision.  Now I am wondering, if Bradford cannot reverse their losing trend, and if they find themselves outside the top six in the next few weeks, can the Board afford to maintain their faith in McNamara?  Only time will tell …..

Who’d be a Coach!

When does a coach become vulnerable? When his side has lost a certain number of games, or when they are not where they are expected to be in the table. The Boards of clubs can start to panic, worrying about loss of revenue, damaging the profile of the club, and most importantly, keeping the fans happy. Sometimes it seems that the only course of action they can come up with is to get rid of the coach, even when that coach has given the club great success in the past.

Last year Huddersfield got off to a really bad start, losing their first seven matches, without even injuries to blame. But the Board kept faith with the coach Jon Sharp and the club recovered and even made the playoffs for the first time. In that case patience was certainly the best policy.

John Kear took Hull to a Challenge Cup victory in 2005, yet he was sacked in 2006 because the club was not doing as well as had been hoped. Now he is hailed as doing a brilliant job at Wakefield, saving them from relegation in 2006 and getting them to a point where they are hovering outside the top 6 now, and still in with a chance of a Challenge Cup victory too. Did he suddenly become a different, more effective coach when he arrived at Wakefield? Similarly, Wigan got rid of Ian Millward in 2006 due to the club’s poor performance. But surely this losing streak was due to the glut of injured players rather than Millward having become a poor coach after leaving St Helen’s. Brian Noble then came in and “saved” Wigan, but wasn’t that more because he was lucky enough to get players back from injury than because of any miraculous coaching skills.

Karl Harrison was hit by a large number of injuries at Salford last year, and their poor performance led to him getting the sack. But even when players came back from injury, the new coach Sean McRae couldn’t save Salford from relegation.

Now despite no relegation, two coaches have gone this season. Hull FC have sacked Peter Sharp after the team have under-performed so far this year, after winning the Challenge Cup in 2005 and reaching the Grand Final two years ago. But the start of their season was blighted by injuries, and it’s hard to see what any other coach could have done differently. And Paul Cullen has resigned – presumably before he was pushed. And I think maybe he is the exception in what I feel to be a rather unfair way of dealing with coaches when the club is failing to achieve. In Warrington’s caese, although they have had their fair share of injuries, especially recently, they have a very strong team and they should really have done better this season. Capitulating to Castleford last Monday was definitely a low point, and it seems as if Cullen’s resignation was the only possible outcome. Lee Briers admits to being “gutted” in the Sun (30 May) that Cullen has gone, and maybe the players have to shoulder some of the blame, but perhaps also he was just not a good enough coach. Astonishingly, since I wrote the rest of this, Jon Sharpe has now been sacked at Huddersfield. That’s a quarter of the superleague coaches gone in a little over two weeks. Are there more to come?

How much can a team’s performance rely on the coach’s words of wisdom and coaching tips? Can they really have such influence – is it all mind games?

I suppose when things are going badly for a club, a new coach has the benefit of being able to start again without feeling the sword hanging over his head, and that must give him the ability to instil belief into the players without them getting the whiff of desperation that a coach at risk of losing his job must inevitably give off. But if players are still injured there is only a certain amount that a new broom can achieve, and what an intense, nerve-wracking job it must be. The reward is obviously in the achievement of the team, and there must be little to beat the feeling of seeing your team lift the Grand Final trophy, the Challenge Cup or even the League Leaders’ Shield. But sometimes it seems like a very small step from coach of the month to ex-coach.

On another note, having watched a miserable Bradford Bulls display yesterday which saw them crashing out of the Challenge Cup to Hull, I now withdraw unreservedly my defence of the Bulls in my last post. In this form and with this attitude they don’t deserve to be in the top six let alone get to the Grand Final. Jamie Langley says in the Telegraph and Argus today that the players blame themselves. But why don’t they do something about it? Maybe they need a new coach?