Hi Red and welcome back,
A very interesting topic. One which I really like.
Too often neglected by young referees I'm afraid.
As mentioned by Becket50, the way you're received before match, your previous experience with such and such teams, the fact you know you missed a player's big foul in the previous game you ref'ed him, etc...
All this will have a certain level of impact on your refereeing that day. But it's the same for the players when they see you arriving on game day: "Oh no, not him again!" or "At least it's not that other guy!" or "..."
We all arrive on game day with everything we're carrying into it.
To me, there are 3 ways players (on the pitch) can influence you and about 1 "the crowd" can.
I'll start with "the crowd"
I put that word under brackets because the bigger it is the more meaningful their reactions are.
That's pure science:if you want the right answer to a problem, ask as many people as possible: the majority will (99.99% of the time) get it right where the single one expert may not.
So, in a 50-50 situation, the reaction of the crowd is to be taken in perspective - with a pinch of salt of course.
To me, that's a conscious influence, and that's the only way a crowd has an effect on me during a game (because the roar of a stadium as you're waiting in the tunnel for the first time make you want to pee your pants). The rest of the time, the outside of the playing enclosure doesn't really exist to me.
The payers in the playing area
Situation one
Red THP: "Sir, can you have a look at pushing early in the scrum?"
Ref: "You mean you pushing early?
"
It's a conscious influence in my opinion.
It's polite, it's probably justified (as you've been looking at something else or, if you've seen it, you deemed it immaterial and it probably isn't, etc..
Furthermore, it's a good management tool (particularly at the scrum) because it's generally said when everyone can ear. As such, you 90% sure it will not happen this time if the opposition LHP is doing it on purpose. If the LHP is struggling, that's a different matter of course.
Situation two
Red SH shouting: "He must roll away! He must roll away!"
That's again a conscious influence. Most of the time though, in my personal case, I will tend to whistle a lot less when that happens. Because it would give everyone the impression that I am not ref'ing (the SH is).
When I do whistle, I will make a point to tell the player to shut it, telling him (if it's true) that I'm in a better position than him.
If it becomes too common, I'll call the captains up and tell them exactly the above:
"Skippers, the more you team tell me what to do, the less I will. So let me ref and I'll let you play. Are we clear? Take a minute to tell them to stop that shouting please. Thanks."
It generally stops. If it does mot, it's PK time. And if that's not enough, I will resort to the cards. No problem for me there. As St Nige once said: "This is not soccer" :biggrin:
Situation three
What I would call the NLP remark
(NLP = Neuro Linguist Programmation. It's the art of creating a pre-programmed reaction with words. Used a lot in the army and sects... I use it a little bit at work too :biggrin: )
M favourite examples, which I pulled as a player long time ago:
1. Opposition winger goes and dives in in-goal to score, I dive too to try to prevent the try. He clearly grounds the ball that pops out of his hands after he scored. As the ref arrived a bit late and as I slowly and head down walk towards my own posts for conversion, I sadly look at the ref and say something along the line of "I think he dropped it sir, but it's ok, he deserves a score".
"Peep. Scrum 5 defending team"
2. Opposition 22m drop out (in a 10-a-side tourney), straight in touch. Ref looking a bit hesitant, I just got a bit closer to him and mentioned something like "isn't like 7's sir? FK, right?"
I 100% new it was a scrum option, but as everyone looked a bit lost, I thought a quick FK could give us 5 its (which it did).
This situation 3 happens every game, sometime you all notice it and ensure you don't fall in the trap. I guarantee you sometimes you just don't even notice you're being influenced. To me, that's where the work (as a ref) needs to be put.
The more you realise players tactics in this area, the more in control of your own decisions you will be.
Hope it helps bringing some more views on this. Good luck!
Cheers,
Pierre.
