coco the fullback wrote:
Improving the quality of officiating is a separate issue and one for the ruling body.
I think this is the crux of it - and a very different problem to the perception that a particular referee is deliberately biased against a particular team, which is dumb to begin with, and which you've debunked pretty conclusively; and kudos to you for introducing the scientific method to RL fans!
As to the quality issue - I think it's a difficult and rather circular problem, that rests primarily with the RFL and to some extent, with supporters, coaches and players. The RFL have to bear the main responsibility for the lack of professional officials - it's obviously not a sufficiently attractive career path for enough people to meet the demand - and from what I understand, they are not very well supported, and are bombarded with rule changes, interpretation changes and new directives so regularly, that they sometimes don't know how to officiate in each circumstance.
The supporters, coaches and players also have to bear some responsibility for that, because we collectively create a hostile environment for match officials, by questioning their integrity, honesty and private lives on a regular basis, often in public and often to cover our own shortcomings, or those of our team or teammates - which in turn makes it an even less attractive career path. Who wants to go through the RFL's pretty awful process of becoming a ref, only to spend every weekend being yelled at, called a w@nker and having your integrity and competence called into question by untrained pillocks with a Sky camera in their face?
I don't know what the answer is - but convincing yourself that James Child is waging a deliberate campaign against WT is not it.
