Paul Kent: Coaches’ bullying of League Central has created an environment where rational decisions no longer exist
Given the bullying from NRL coaches on interpretation, did bunker referee Ashley Klein have a choice? Paul Kent looks at the truth behind Sunday’s penalty fiasco.
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The absurdity of it all is that we finally got to that place on Sunday where a team with no coach to speak of, one sacked and two down with Covid, got rolled by a cynical play that could only have been coached into them.
It seems they are doing it on autopilot nowadays.
The more layers that get peeled back from what happened on Sunday the closer we get to the truth that the coaches’ bullying of League Central has created an environment where the small chances of a rational decision being made can no longer exist.
Instead we have created an eternal argument, the solution always leading back to the problem. Do we want a black and white interpretation of the rules, or do we want discretion?
The moment a little discretion is applied and a ruling is made using what some might call “footy common sense” you can bet a coach will send a dozen clips the following Monday asking why these incidents weren’t adjudicated the same way.
The convincer in the argument will be the need for “consistency”.
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So the game will order black and white interpretations to satisfy this yearning for consistency - even though it is an inconsistent game – and the moment a decision no longer fits, like on Sunday, everyone is in uproar that common sense has gone out the window.
Where’s the discretion, they ask?
Did Asu Kepaoa run a line that interfered with Kyle Feldt getting to the ball from the kick off on Sunday?
Yes.
Did Kepaoa accelerate to make contact with Feldt?
Yes.
Was Kepaoa running a line that would have put him under the ball when it landed?
No.
Did Feldt lose his feet?
Yes.
In Black and White World, it was a penalty.
Not when we live in Discretionary World, though.
Was the contact excessive enough to warrant a penalty?
No.
Did Feldt actually lean into Kepaoa to make contact?
Yes.
Could Feldt have gone around him?
Yes.
In Discretionary World, it was not a penalty.
Unfortunately, the game drifts back and forth from Black and White World to Discretionary World according to our own moods and prejudices, really.
It is a game driven by emotion, and emotion is not always rational.
Sunday’s incident was a perfect flashpoint for all this.
The Tigers were in last place and in desperate need of a win to calm the noise around the club for the past month.
The Cowboys were dominant favourites, yet the Tigers were about to capture an unlikely victory.
It was the last play of the game.
And it was a play that would decide the game.
Emotionally everybody was high.
Kepaoa ran that line because it had been coached into him, even without a coach in the grandstand.
Escorting players off the ball is an old tactic now.
Before the fateful kick-off referee Chris Butler actually yells, quite clearly, “No escorts”.
That instruction was as black and white as they come.
Yet Kepaoa did it anyway.
The fact the kick was deep and Feldt was unlikely to get to the ball anyway, which Kepaoa failed to recognise, adds to the emotional outrage.
It supports the argument for discretion.
NRL general manager of football Graham Annesley felt that way, saying he was hoping it would not be ruled a penalty once it was sent to the bunker.
Most of us also hoped it would go that way.
Yet bunker referee Ashley Klein went the other way, applying a direct interpretation of the law.
How much of his decision was driven by the subconscious thought that anything but a literal interpretation would be challenged by some coach tomorrow, or sometime soon, asking about that other dreaded word “consistency”, we will never know.
By continually pushing for this consistency in every situation, the NRL has created a rod for its own back, which is unbending.
It is an unwinnable premise.
Rugby league was once a simple game, with simple rules.
The absurdity of Sunday’s call is that as the game overlooks basic infringements, like putting the foot on the ball in the play-the-ball, feeding the scrum in the middle – all to let the game flow, they tell us – the game keeps inventing new and more intricate rules to make it more complicated.
Once again, the argument is infinite.
And almost always the rule shifts are in response to cynical coaching tactics designed to bend the rules rather than play within them.
When the game recognises this and announces a crackdown, for instance, a penalty blitz to bring the players back into line, the argument quickly evolves into a campaign against too many penalties.
The coaches merely instruct their players to push through knowing eventually the referee will fold.
Like everything, the problem starts where it ends.
‘We won fair and square’: Cowboys fire up for legal stoush
- Brent Read
North Queensland boss Jeff Reibel has bristled at suggestions Sunday afternoon’s result could be overturned as one of the country’s leading sports lawyers cast doubt on the Wests Tigers’ ability to launch a successful legal fight over their controversial defeat in Townsville.
The Tigers lodged an official complaint with the NRL on Monday morning over the decision to award a penalty to North Queensland with one second remaining, the first step towards having the result potentially overturned.
ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has asked for a full report into the incident and won’t rule out any action until he and his fellow commissioners have had the opportunity to digest their findings.
The Cowboys are likely to investigate legal action of their own should the NRL decide to change the outcome of the game, although Reibel is confident head office won’t go down that path.
“If they are going to look to overturn something on one decision, doesn’t that open a Pandora’s box,” Reibel said.
“Where do you start and stop? My understanding is that we won the game. I understand that the opposition would want some explanation for why those decisions were made.
“As far as we’re concerned we won the game within the rules. Do you want to go back to 2013 when we lost a final because Manly knocked on and it wasn’t picked up, or Cronulla scored a try on the seventh tackle?
“We have been on the other end of it. We won that game fair and square.”
There is a precedent for changing the result – in the AFL. Sixteen years ago, St Kilda kicked a point after the siren to grab a draw against Fremantle. The umpires didn’t hear the siren and allowed the point, which robbed Fremantle of victory.
The AFL conducted an investigation and overturned the result, deeming Fremantle had won the game. Crucially, they made the point that their decision was related to an off-field oversight rather than overruling an on-field decision of the match officials.
The NRL’s investigations into Sunday’s shambles will focus on two elements – whether the Cowboys had the right to use a captain’s challenge at the end of the game, and whether video official Ashley Klein should have awarded a penalty.
Special counsel Tim Fuller, who represented swimmer Shayne Jack and rugby league player James Segeyaro in the fight to clear their names over drug bans, said the Tigers’ chances of success would likely hinge on where blame lay.
“Firstly, sport or sporting officials are not immune to legal liability,” Fuller said.
“However, I would suggest that any incorrect decision that was made in good faith would not attract legal liability.
“Therefore, any attempt at legal action would fail.”
Fuller said the other issue the NRL would have to grapple with was whether the rules had been followed.
“Other issue here though, of course, is not just the decision of the bunker (and) Klein, but whether the rules have been observed (at end of the game),” Fuller said
“The NRL say yes – and if they are right, we would say that legally they did not act ultra vires (meaning ‘beyond the powers’ or rules of the game).
“If the bunker did rule on the review decision and it was outside the rules, then absolutely it is suggested that the Tigers would have a valid legal course of action against the NRL and this result.”
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