Rugby Refereeing

The thing with rugby refereeing is that as a player, you're taught from the age of 7, to respect the referee and that his decision is final and you never backchat him or you lose 10 yards.

This very quickly polices itself, because that one gobby shite on your team who does it, costs you all territory and is then told by the rest of him team so put a sock in it.

In football, being a twat and arguing with the ref is glorified.

Ibrahimorich said:

The thing with rugby refereeing is that as a player, you're taught from the age of 7, to respect the referee and that his decision is final and you never backchat him or you lose 10 yards.

This very quickly polices itself, because that one gobby shite on your team who does it, costs you all territory and is then told by the rest of him team so put a sock in it.

In football, being a twat and arguing with the ref is glorified.

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We were playing a school game and one of our player's father kept on shouting abuse at the ref (our P.E. teacher).

In the end he gave a penalty against us and they won by 3 points.

Yeah clearly a level above the working class football ref .

For me, one of the many highlights of watching international rugger is watching and listening to the excellent referees. I accept that not everyone in the stadium can listen to the referees but certainly on TV it is so enlightening.
They are very clear and consise with the players and it is easy to see why they get the level of respect.
Of course rugger and football are different in many ways but the contrast with football is total. Football players like to pretend that they are respectful, with the armbands and posters. But in reality there is almost zero respect for the officials. Most seem to have no comprehension of even the most basic rules.
I find the behaviour of most players detestable in the extreme. Spoilt little brats ruining this great game.

Our refs should be micced up and we as fans/managers/players should be able to hear the discussion. Even going to watch a rugby game at the stadium you can buy RefRadios to listen to their calls. It's transparent.

Take the Liverpool game for example, if we all heard Martin Atkinson discuss with the VAR team, he may have said "I've seen the contact on Origi but I don't think there is enough contact to be a foul" then it's done. Refereeing a game will always be subjective but at least this would be clearly transparent to fans.

What we have now is a VAR clip shown to millions, no discussion and then the Referee makes a call. We have no idea how he has interpreted it.

SteveTheRed said:

Our refs should be micced up and we as fans/managers/players should be able to hear the discussion. Even going to watch a rugby game at the stadium you can buy RefRadios to listen to their calls. It's transparent.

Take the Liverpool game for example, if we all heard Martin Atkinson discuss with the VAR team, he may have said "I've seen the contact on Origi but I don't think there is enough contact to be a foul" then it's done. Refereeing a game will always be subjective but at least this would be clearly transparent to fans.

What we have now is a VAR clip shown to millions, no discussion and then the Referee makes a call. We have no idea how he has interpreted it.

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This. And if players need to kerb their language when speaking to the ref/each other that's hardly a bad thing is it?