The unwatchable NRL joke that must be brought to an end now

The NRL have a serious situation on their hands and it’s one that is going to drive fans away from the game unless it’s sorted out.

OPINION

The sin bin has become so overused that the NRL should proactively refund an entire bay of tickets for the upcoming Magic Round.

Not just out of remorse, but also so there’s enough seats for all the players who’ll be sat down for tackles that wouldn’t blow the froth off a schooner.

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While they’re at it, they should schedule a fourth day of play at Suncorp too, just to ensure extra time for the Bunker’s pedantry.

With its stop-start refereeing and tedious interventions from upstairs, round eight of 2025 will be recalled as when rugby league ground to a halt under its own dogma.

Whether it was the Bunker instructing penalties from six sets ago, referees over-policing high tackles or players simulating to exploit loopholes, the game descended in to a lottery with more players marched than the preceding Anzac ceremonies.

With confused officials working off a rule book written in hieroglyphics while the Bunker screams in their ear, the game’s officialdom is overcooked with overreach.

Officiating of NRL games has reached worrying heights. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Remember the golden days when the sin bin was like the good cutlery?

It was only used on rare occasions, usually after someone had died.

But nowadays it’s abused beyond the pale, with everything worthy of a 10 minute rest including tackling, defending and presence.

Yep, pretty much anything can get you binned these days, unless you trip someone or knee them in the ear.

If you haven’t noticed, this crackdown is not only pedantic, it’s also proverbially nine beers deep.

After all, when you see the Tigers Fonua Pole binned for merely nursing a ball carrier on the same weekend both Dylan Edwards and Sitili Tupouniua remained on the paddock after tripping an opponent and lifting the knees in to a face respectively, somebody somewhere in the chain of command is clearly taking the wazz.

This is fine … apparently. Photo: Fox League.

Sure, we accept the NRL is getting heavy-handed in a bid to reduce concussion, but it’s a strategy that’s blown up in ironic fashion because it’s got us all banging our heads against the wall.

To be fair to the on-field referees, they have a fair bit to contend with.

There’s players barking in their face and fans questioning their aptitude, all while the Bunker controls their every decision from the cloud so stridently you’ll spot Adam Gee paralysed in the cereal aisle at Coles soon with his hand to his ear awaiting confirmation on Cheerios or All Bran.

You can also blame the rule book, with what was once a user-friendly set of rules now scaffolded with so many kneejerk amendments it looks like Homer’s barbecue.

Once celebrated for its breathtaking simplicity, nowadays the rules of rugby league are so complex that even Wayne Bennett can’t identify a hip drop, and he’s been around since it was defined as pressure to the back of the knickerbockers.

Players are just as fed up as the fans. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

The result?

Its rendered the on-field referee a mere conduit for a stream of random decisions, with some penalties laughable and others just plain unidentifiable.

Chris Randall’s ‘transgression’ on Tom Dearden in the Cowboys v Titans game from Saturday and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki’s on Hudson Young are cases in point, with both so undetectable they’re still being screened in forensics for any traces of contact or testosterone.

As for the Bunker, its contributed the heaviest to this scandal by sticking its rogue nose where it’s not welcomed.

The over-officiating from the off-field refs has become so rife they’ve even penalised Kodi Nikorima, which is hardly unacceptable except it was for a tackle he made in 2015.

Worse still, it’s the inconsistency that is enraging fans, with Manly’s Siua Taukei’aho sin-binned past-tense for a high shot in the same game Isaah Yeo walked free after drawing blood from Tom Trbojevic’s face.

Sadly, this practice of halting play to sin bin players for tackles from last century has become commonplace in recent weeks, a development in the game described by Andrew Johns as “absolutely farcical.”

The farce is taking over the game. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Sure, a loud exhaust is enough to set off Joey at the best of times, but such was the disgrace that he refused to call the closing stages of Sunday’s Tigers v Sharks match.

As for the players, they’re hardly innocent either.

Seeing Ronaldo Mulitalo in painful repose after being gently caressed by Jack Bird exhibits again how the players are equally culpable in this mess with their petticoat diving practices.

Once a peculiarity as outrageous to rugby league as pickle juice, the act of simulating is now as accepted in the game as a mouthful of the pickled brine, with players having evolved with their nanny-state habitat to become as milky as the game’s ideals.

Thankfully, Andrew Abdo fronted up yesterday to face the music, a welcome move after the NRL stopped putting Graham Annesley in the gallows every week for his weekly briefing.

The CEO has promised changes for Magic Round, guaranteeing a rollback of the Bunker’s remit while also stressing there’s been “no crackdown or policy change.”

But it remains to be seen whether these rogue officials heed the boss’s directive of or ignore it, evidently like they’ve done the last few weeks.

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as The unwatchable NRL joke that must be brought to an end now