Jarrod Burton

Referees in Australia
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2013
- Messages
- 720
- Post Likes
- 202
- Current Referee grade:
- Level 2
My emphasis.There has to be a will to enforce the laws as written otherwise people tend to discount them as immaterial.
Rucks, going off feet and in at the side, ping hard and consistently will soon see a change in behaviours.
Be firm with offside lines to give attacking teams a fair chance to build an attack and defending teams a fair opportunity to field kicks.
While we are at it, the contest at scrums and line outs should be reasserted.
A line out jumper going across or interlinking arms when that is the only way they can get near a ball that is blatantly not down the middle should be adjusted to address the first offence.
But this cannot be done by individual referees they need the backing of the system.
None of the laws as such are immaterial, but an infringement of them may well be in the game overall . If we are going to crack down on certain laws then why not every single one of them? A BC goes to ground and keeps their hand on the ball to steady it at the back of a clearly won ruck, a tackled player not rolling away for whatever reason, a trapped tackler who makes every effort to get away from a ball which is available but doesn't actually roll away, and, allowing a 9 to fish out a ball from a ruck that is clearly won but stuck against a body are all against the laws but really don't impact the match so we don't bother with them and I'd argue that applying the law rigidly in these circumstances is unlikely to make the game better or more enjoyable for anyone.