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Message: [QUOTE="Morkel, post: 3391598, member: 8215"] [IMG]https://broncoshq.com/attachments/nswrl_digest-png.17885/[/IMG] ------------------------------------- [B]NSWRL 003: Favouritism [SIZE=6]Claims of unconscious bias from the refs are insulting.[/SIZE][/B] At the NSWRL Digest, we promised you hard-hitting stories directly from the game's top administrators, and it doesn't get any bigger than this. This week we speak to The Don himself, Peter Vlandys, as we discuss the state of the refereeing in the NSWRL. "It's insulting, it really is", snaps Vlandys immediately. For context, we have only just sat down for our pre-interview pleasantries but already Peter Vlandys, aka The Don, is straight in to it. "We have put so much work in to our refereeing that claims of the bias being unconscious are infuriating to me. What happens out there is deliberate, let me tell you. This is the culmination of years of planning and effort, and it's only now that we have the tactical refereeing down to an art form. No other comp can match what we are able to produce each week". "I watched, frustrated as the two referee system brought the game to its knees. We had a ref watching the ten, and we had a ref watching the ruck, and teams were being refereed according to the rule book, and it was a fucking disaster, pardon my language. I wasn't officially a part of the administration at that point, but I was being warmed up for it, and I witnessed first hand the bullshit that the NSWRL team had to cop". "They were just coming out of the Fairytale Initiatives, the Sharks had won theirs and Rothfield finally made good on his promise to bury the evidence against Greenberg, meaning Todd finally had some power to make some adjustments. That turned out to be the worst move for the NSWRL because Todd had no idea how to organise a complex heirarchy like the referees, and he made a mess of it". [IMG]https://www.macarthuradvertiser.com.au/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/16ebf384-85f8-48c6-83db-9f6f94e31d58.jpg/r0_0_800_600_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg[/IMG] "The Storm were in line for their allocated premiership, but the referees just did not let them play their game. It was frustrating for us, and it was frustrating for them. The calls from Bellamy were constant. "How the **** are my fucking boys able to play footy when your fucking guys won't let them", that's what he was saying, and he was dead right. They'd been trained superbly to bend the rules just as well as they'd been bending knees, elbows, and spinal columns, but when that leeway is taken away overnight it all fell apart". "A couple of the other top teams were really struggling too, and it got to the point where we hat to lean on the media to get involved and crack down on the crackdown. It was the only way. It got fixed, the Storm marched to their premiership, but people were scared by that". "It wasn't long before the writing was on the wall, and I finally got green-lighted to come in and stamp some authority. Covid was a blessing, that's for sure. The two refs wasn't working, and Covid allowed us to "sack" half of the refs and bring it back to a one ref system, which is way easier to work with. But the masterpiece was how we handled the video ref system. It was only intended to chime in when requested, but we saw the opportunity it presented when no one else did. We knew that with only the one ref on the field (let's not bother to call the touch judges refs) it was much easier to control, and it meant that not only did it take just one solitary person to pull the strings, it was in the comfort of a bunker, hidden away from prying eyes". [IMG]https://www.nrl.com/siteassets/operations/the-officials/2nh_8974.jpg?center=0.3%2C0.5&preset=photo-inline[/IMG] "The beauty was in the simplicity. We give the video ref a tip sheet and a narrative to follow, and he does the rest. If we need to intervene, we can, and no one will ever know, but most of the time if they stick to their task it works perfectly". Vlandys goes on to explain how this new system is so effective in controlling games. "Say you have a team on top that really shouldn't be. Like the Warriors are really putting it to the Storm. We'll let it play out for a few sets and see if things start to correct themselves on their own, but if not we have a couple of subtle tweaks. Firstly, we'll tell the on field ref that the Warriors are creeping the ten, so we'll get him to stand back to maybe 11 or 12 metres to hold the line back a bit. When the Storm get the ball we can do the opposite, we'll say that the Warriors are coming up off the mark and they'll do their job and shorten the Storm to a 9 or 8. You'd be surprised the difference a metre or two makes to momentum, it will turn one team in to lazy, passive defenders constantly on their heels, while the other will have a heap of time and get an easy roll-on. Normally this is enough for most games to get the right team moving and the scoreboard in the right direction". [IMG]https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/ac535fff83bcf8f3ffb30a4dd8ee0b2c?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=1688&cropW=3000&xPos=0&yPos=0&width=862&height=485[/IMG] "If that's not enough, we can resort to penalties. Remember, there is no second ref for the ruck now, the on field ref is marking the ten so he has no idea. An easy one is "Hand on the ball". There's not a tackle these days that doesn't have the ball wrapped up so it's a gimme, no one will argue that. "Markers not square" is another one". "We've gone one further with the 6-again. It's afforded us even less scrutiny as no one has time to look back at it. Ring the bell and off we go, we've given our team a fresh set and momentum". "Look, it's a great system but it hasn't been easy. The broadcasters and do-gooders have tried to get in there and mess with it, but we've been able to keep them at bay so far. We had that situation where the broadcast was planning on showing a virtual 10 metre line, and as you can imaging, that would be a huge blow to what we're trying to do. We made that quietly go away which was great. We've now got people trying to come up with forward-pass detecting technology, which, too, has the potential to blow everything up. We have our team out there doing what they can to resist those moves". Asked whether there is potential for match manipulation, beyond just simple win/losses, but potentially in partnership with sponsoring betting agencies, Vlandys keeps it close to his chest. "Look, that goes beyond what we are trying to do here. We're really just looking to make sure the right teams end up the top at the pointy end of the season. What you're suggesting would have legal ramifications and we're not interested in breaking any laws here. Just because we have the perfect system to manipulate not only results, but things like margins, overs/unders, all those exotics, and just because there are betting agencies that, should they wish to align themselves with us in an official manner, be able to make millions of dollars more than their competitors, doesn't mean it's something we've put any thought in to it". [IMG]https://www.foxsports.com.au/pmd/images/2019/06/28/736816_640x360_large_20190628221030.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE]

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