
jonesy101
Posted on behalf of Silvertails user: Mark from Brisbane
Well isn’t it refreshing to hear that we aren’t alone here on Silvertails thinking it’s only us who sees this!!
Honestly , much of the last 10 years has been about “ fairytales “ , almost like they sit down and discuss who’s turn it is to get an award.
The Panthers ( whilst acknowledging they are very good ) are next up and the other darlings the Parra Eels won’t be far behind.
Trouble is , it’s manufactured bullshit and most thinking fans can see through it!
Its great getting the perspective of the weeks games from supporters of other clubs so this shared thread has been awesome.
One thing I often hear about our club on this side of the Tasman is "They would never want a club based in New Zealand winning the premiership." I don't see why that would be the case, as a premiership win for the Warriors would be transformative for rugby league over here and huge competition against the more dominant code - it would be far bigger than a Super Rugby championship. That can only be a good thing for rugby league in general. If there was a deliberate directive to make sure that certain clubs got more favorable outcomes I'm sure we would've had a whistleblower (excuse the pun) by now.
The theory that I subscribe to is the sub-conscious bias that may occur from a teams momentum and the media hype that surrounds it. We've heard a lot for two seasons about Newcastle's resurgence from their years at the very bottom and there is no denying that yesterday's game was season defining for them. Lose and their season was over. Could that along with the parochial crowd have put pressure on the ref? Possibly. Should that happen? Definitely not so if that's the case work is needed to address it.
The closest game I can think of in recent memory to what happened yesterday was the Warriors v Eels one in 2019. Parra were on a run of wins at their new well hyped home of Bankwest and there was a very similar penalty count to what unfolded yesterday. The Warriors got a token penalty at the end of the game, yet the Eels were performing two-on-one strips and all sorts of other negative play which was going unpunished. It was so bizarre that led to our local betting agency voluntarily refunding all lost bets on that game.
While there is no denying it needs improvement and greater consistency as this weekend was a debacle, I'm glad we still have ones that are willing to put their hands up to ref in these times of multiple camera angles resulting in the massive scrutiny etc. I certainly wouldn't be cut out for that sort of pressure.
What I don't want to see is the adjudicating becoming so robotic in order to get the calls 100% right that we have plays getting reviewed by the bunker multiple times well after the incident has occurred. That was painful to watch yesterday and extremely disruptive to the flow of the game.