Warrington Guardian sports editor Mike Parsons has his say. He has seen enough and wants action, as do the fans who love Super League and turn up every week...
DON'T wait, do it now!
Use of video referee technology in Super League requires drastic amendments immediately.
Otherwise, fans will be lost.
It has grown increasingly frustrating to watch a match as the season has progressed.
The craziness continued on Friday night when Warrington Wolves hosted Hull FC at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.
A 50-minute first half on Friday was followed by a 51-minute second period, that’s 111 minutes to play an 80-minute game – and that’s not the worst of the drawn-out matches this year.
Constant intrusions, and often prolonged, of the video referee - whether requested by the match whistler or not - are spoiling the spectacle especially for those supporters inside the ground.
Incidents are studied from various angles, frame by frame, time and time again, and after several minutes often the decision made is questionable, while those inside the ground have no idea what the man upstairs is looking for.
Often the video ref is trying to make decisions using footage not suitable, because the technology is not good enough or the angles are wrong, and that leads to the seconds turning into minutes.
Captain’s Challenge has to go, and not only because of all the reasons above, but due to teams having got wise to using it tactically – calling for it when their team needs a breather or to stem the gathering momentum of opponents and that is not in the spirit of the sport.
Everything about the Captain’s Challenge, where a skipper believes the referee made a mistake and can request a video referee check, flies in the face of attempts this year at trying to speed the game up by reducing the amount of wrestling in the collisions – not that referees are policing that very well or if at all (along with offsides at the play-the-ball) as we approach the halfway point in the campaign.
It is a poor look for the sport. How long before somebody at Sky Sports has a brainwave and thinks that during these periods of downtime they can throw an advert into the broadcast, which would frustrate those watching on TV.
We’ve tried Captain’s Challenge, fair enough, but it doesn’t work. Fans don’t like it, coaches don’t like it and players don’t like the stop-start nature that comes with it – so get rid.
And it is ridiculous that a team scores a try, it is awarded by the referee, the kicker sets up to add the conversion and then there’s a wait while the video referee is deciding whether there was any infringements in the act of scoring.
It can be several minutes after the celebrations of a try have concluded, on and off the field, that suddenly the score can be cancelled and through poor signalling by the match referee the crowd can be left wondering why. It is annoying, frustrating, off-putting for those who love the game, turn up every week, only to head home afterwards disillusioned by it all.
Further delays occur at various points, such as when there’s been a high tackle or a flare-up, with the video referee running a check in the background on various angles of footage and communicating back to the match official whether to play on, penalise, or issue a card.
Technology in life in general is supposed to be helpful and improve efficiency but it often creates its own problems – which is the position Super League now finds itself in.
While it wasn’t perfect, and some weeks officiating errors determined the outcomes of games, it would be a better watch for the fans than what we’ve got now by going back to the beginning – the video referee only coming into play with tries, and only then when the match official requests.
I appreciate it puts pressure and responsibility on the match referees, who have a massively difficult task, but something has to change.
Whatever the answer is, it needs to be introduced now rather than waiting until the end of the season and the fans have to be a priority in the thinking of which new direction to take.
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