http://drnrl.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/stats-wars-a-forelorn-hope-the-abcs-war-on-facts/
The fact is that the Roosters and Manly have had to post superhuman defensive efforts because of the lopsided penalty counts against them. They are successful in spite of them, in other words. If it were any other way, they would not be well entrenched in the Top 4, and they would not be credible contenders for the Premiership.
But the Roosters’ coach, along with little Toovs, might ask different questions:
1. Why do we not attract more penalties for the opposition holding us down in the same we are found guilty, when there is clear evidence of them doing so? Not to mention similar incidents in other games played over the same weekend?
2. Ditto, but with respect to interfering in the play the ball.
3. Why is it that we work hard to play the ball quickly and catch the opposition offside, yet are not rewarded for it? Please explain how it is different to the penalties blown against us?
Asking in this way might be implicitly accusative, but not explicitly. These questions are designed to illicit detailed answers.
When I fail to see any major differences between teams in any particular match, it’s hard to understand penalty counts in favour of one team that are measured in multiples of two to three.
But like Demtel, there’s always more. We are then treated to what can only be interpreted as designed to prod referees into penalising these two teams further:
“In spite of these two teams appalling rate of penalties conceded, neither has had a player sin binned in 2013.”
No, though (the Roosters’) Jared Warea-Hargreave managed to be the only player sent from the field for an act that was preceded and followed by far graver incidents. And the Melbourne Storm continue to be shepherded through the competition by referees who cannot seem to bring themselves to penalise them for blatant fouls. The so-called Big 3 have been culpable on several occasions this year without sanction, the latest being an obvious sin-binning infringement by Cooper Cronk against the Knights on Sunday that … well … wasn’t.
Why? Nobody knows, but everyone suspects.
Penalise them, no problem. But once again, I’ve sat through games where a defender has been penalised due to the superb theatrics of the man playing the ball, often including walking up to two metres off the mark in order to do so. Rather than give the attacking team the penalty, this is a clear example of referees not applying the rules (not knowing them if you ask me). If the man with the ball walks off the mark, penalise him … Or, in the spirit of the flow of the game, don’t penalise the marker for being offside. Simple stuff. Low hanging fruit. Reckon they can get it right?
So my message to Manly and Toovs is this – keep calling the referees out for incompetence. Ricky did it earlier in the year and accepted the fine, which was a mistake. The fine is there for implying bias, not for unveiling the referee clown show for what it is.
Keep calling out the grading system relating to suspensions for leniency, and the NRL for double standards and inconsistency.
And when the former referees boss, Bill Harrigan, can single out Jeff Lima for a 10 week suspension for an obvious attack on the structure of another man’s leg, why can’t a coach mention it in passing? The MRC aren’t that malleable and easily influenced, are they?
Oh, right …
