Worst Team in the NRL 2012

Which team was the worst performing team in the NRL for 2012?  If you look at the ladder it is with out a doubt Parramatta.  If you go by coaches being sacked then you would still go with Parramatta, although if you add in potential Parramatta are still contenders but West Tigers are a close second.

If you take into consideration a team that has made errors almost every game that have cost sides tries, gifted tries that should never have been, and on many occasions made calls that no one agrees with then it is no surprise that the team that should be granted the title as The Worst Team in the NRL for 2012 is the referees.

From the start of the season the referees have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons and leading up to the grand final it has not changed but if anything it has gotten worse. What makes it frustrating is when it is the Video referee that is making the biggest mistakes and that is with the benefit of using a replay, slow motion and sometimes with a second person to help get the decision right. How is it that the officials are not improving but getting worse yet are still considered to be the best for the job. Are there that few coming through the ranks?  Considering that the referees all get training and have a coach and management team in Bill Harrigan and Stuart Raper, who is it that should be held accountable? Every time a referee makes a poor decision the standard response is for them to be stood down for a week, the only trouble is with so many of them making mistakes they can't all be stood down. When a team usually performs so poorly over a season you rarely see the coach keep his job and for the latter part of 2012 the same is being asked of the referees coaches. How is it that Harrigan and Raper have not been stood down?  Now we are in a position where everyone is fearing the Grand Final will be marred by another mistake.

The NRL has put itself in a position that is unwinnable. At the end of the season there will be an overhaul of the officials and changes must come, it is just a matter of what change and if it is the right change. Anything it does though will not fix the damage done and I cannot see the NRL admitting they got things wrong with the current situation. But what can be done?

The first thing that needs to go is what every one seems to be agreeing on. Benefit of Doubt. This is the video ref get out clause and it has to go. If the video ref is unable to say one way or the other, Try or no try, then it should always go back to the referee on the field. Also if the insistence is there to keep using the video replay in frame by frame slow motion to adjudicate tries then until the vision is in High Definition then it should not be used. Surely if the game is worth spending a billion dollars on for the rights then they can afford to use the best technology. Channel 9 are always boasting about the technology in cameras for cricket, why can't they invest in the NRL?

Is 2 referees working?  Not in it's current format. There should only ever be one official in charge. The second referee is adding confusion to the game for the players in interpretation of the ten and ruck infringements. The pocket referee should only be there as a spotter and nothing more. Only one referee should hold a whistle.

Is the game getting too fast?  Possibly but with wrestling techniques it is also getting more bogged down. The inception of interchange has unfortunately advanced the game very quickly, if not too quickly.  This is the one area I would like to see the NRL tinker with. I believe 4 players on the bench and 8 interchanges is not working for the good of the game.  I was always a fan of the old system where you could only make replacements but we know that is not going to happen. Instead I would like to see a system similar to what the AFL is using but with modification.  Why not allow a team to have an extended bench but be limited in how that bench can be used. For example if a team is allowed 6 players on the bench, two of whom can be used in 4 interchanges for the match. With the reaming 4 players a team is allowed 2 replacements. If a player is taken out in an illegal hit that is put on report then a free replacement is allowed. This might not be a perfect solution but something needs to be changed in this area. This will also see fatigue become more of an issue in the final ten minutes of each half.

Regardless of what happens and what the NRL does, there will be many critics who are not happy and next year will see more mistakes. Mistakes are human, but when the same mistakes keep happening that is incompetence.