V’landys stands by his one-ref call

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has promised there will be more change to come.

Referees will still have the power to send penalise players and send them to the sin bin for repeated ruck infringements Picture: AAP

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has promised there will be more change to come. He has put a broom through Rugby League Central and now the refereeing ranks, yet he is far from finished.

Speculation about him leaving his post in the near future would appear wide of the mark. V’landys insists he is going nowhere as he continues his one-man crusade to revolutionise rugby league.

On Thursday morning, he was on the attack amid criticism of the decision to revert to one referee, a move that has prompted the match officials’ union to take the matter further.

They apparently fear for the safety of players if one person is left in control of the sport on the field. V’landys often talks of alarmist rhetoric and he need look no further than the boss of the referees union Silvio Del Vecchio.

In one breadth, Del Vecchio says strike action would be silly. In another, he sets a course that leads towards industrial action, a move that would further alienate the whistleblowers with the rugby league public.

V’landys won’t be deterred, justifying the decision to change the number of officials on the field by pointing directly to those very same fans.

Late last year, the game carried out a fan survey that generated close to 20,000 responses. One of the questions was what would you like to see changed.

It was an open-ended query designed to let the fans’ vent. And vent they did, taking aim in particular at the use of two referees.

“If you don’t listen to the fans and what they think about the game, then you have nothing,” V’landys said.

“The problem with the media is they tend to listen to the loudest voice, which is the coaches. My job is to listen to the customers.

“My job is to have a level playing field. The coaches job is to get an edge in manipulating the rules. You shouldn’t go along with the coaches in that regard.

“You should worry about the fans. The fan doesn’t care that you are two games into a season. If it was a change that suited one club, fair enough.

“But they are all in the same boat. It is not favouring anyone. Everyone has to adapt. There is a thing called the coronavirus everyone has had to adapt too.

“The second referee pales into insignificance.”

On that count, V’landys is right. The world has much bigger issues to contemplate at the moment than whether one or two referees stand in the middle of a rugby league field, screaming orders with their whistle at the ready.

Yet few issues cause as much consternation for the average fan than the man in the middle.

“We will see,” V’landys said.

“That is the risk you take. I am not risk averse. One thing I have noticed in all industries is that they are all risk averse.

“No one likes change. It is psychological in the human being. That is the challenge I have – for people to accept change.

“I am not doing it for any other reason than to help us. I am a realist. I am going to get some wrong. I am hoping this isn’t one of them.

“I am comfortable in this regard – I always do what I think is right. I speak to a lot of fans and a lot of people and that (refereeing) is one of the common things that come up with them.

“As an administrator, if you don’t have fans, if you don’t have customers, you can’t pay the players, you can’t pay the coaches.”

Clearly, V’landys isn’t a believer in the old adage that if you start listening to the fans, pretty soon you will be sitting with them.

“I don’t mind sitting with them,” he said.

“What is wrong with sitting with them? They are the ones who pay the dollars. So we should ignore them? Anyone who ignores their customers basically does so at their peril.

“There was a company called Nokia many years ago who ignored their customers and they had a monopoly on mobile phones.

“Where are they now? No one is indestructible and if you don’t look after your customers and fans, where do you get your revenue from.”

V’landys insists he paid heed to advice from coaches and players. It is why referees will be allowed to award penalties and potentially sin bin players for repeated infractions in the ruck.

At one point, the referee would have only had the power to restart the tackle count. No shortage of experts, this paper included, have lined up to skewer V’landys for a decision that appears to have largely been driven by the man himself.

He asks that people make their call at the end of the season.

“We’ll see on the 25th of October,” V’landys said.

“If I am on a cross, you know I have failed.”