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Sia Soliola affair shows something badly wrong in NRL refereeing ranks

Steve Mascord
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Decorated referee Greg McCallum has issued a withering assessment of the state or refereeing and of the NRL in the wake of the Sia Soliola affair. The former Test and grand final whistler says referees boss Tony Archer must go for presiding over a regime which saw the Raider stay on the field after his hit on Billy Slater. Archer himself then made immediate statements which McCallum described as "prejudicial" to Soliola getting a fair hearing from the match review committee and judiciary.

"The time has come for people who have some experience and knowledge to speak up," McCallum told Set Of Six on Sunday. "I care about the game; 35 years and it has never been so vulnerable across the board. Ego has overtaken the ability to get right decisions and importantly the ability to communicate them. The destruction of the rules replaced by soft option interpretations was always going to lead to this breakdown – for example: moving off the mark and allowing them to go back and play it again, passing off the ground – go back and play it again. My view is that Archer must go before this mess can be rectified."

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Should Soliola have been sent off?

A slipping Billy Slater was knocked unconscious after Canberra's Sia Soliola got it all wrong.

2. Two wrongs make a bigger wrong

In the view of Set of Six, the decision to leave Soliola on the field followed by a media release saying he should have been sent off does not reflect an error followed by an attempted correction. It reflects one error compounded by another, in both cases caused by a deep-seated fear of "bad optics", leading to a lack of intestinal fortitude.

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"It looks like to me that initially he [Cecchin] was going to dismiss him – touches his forearm in the period while treatment was being given," McCallum said, while speculating that the Bunker got involved. "Again process not followed – hence Archer's statement in haste to cover up yet another poor process, which has become a weekly event."

The fact it is two years since the NRL saw a sending off must mean it has become an unsafe environment for players; like a society where no one has faced worse punishment than a night in the lock-up. Too many people involved in the NRL are obsessed with the NRL and what local shock jocks say about the NRL; how about trying to get things right regardless of what appears in tinpot columns like this and then going home and thinking about something else? It is, after all, just a footy comp the rest of the world does not know or care about. Just try to get it right and bugger what everyone says until it's time for you to move on to another job.

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3. Origin of the difference

Likewise, the cultural differences between life in NSW and Queensland are infinitesimal but what differences remain are fascinatingly and repeatedly exposed by Origin. Let's get this straight: Sydney is not a town where everyone sticks together to cheerily defeat a common enemy. Sydney is a town where if you are successful people will try to steal credit and tear you down and where if you fail you immediately attempt to blame someone else before the mob ruins you.

It's an individualistic, facile convict settlement which became a seething cesspit of aggressive individuality and one-upmanship. If you want a "culture" for the Blues that reflects where they're from, then what has happened in the last 12 days is actually 100 per cent perfect. Trying to synthesise a maroon chip on the shoulder is just stupid. How about NSW appoints a coaching team that has no values or culture at all, just rules – that just wants to win and can get it done. A coaching appointment that would truly reflect Sydney values would be to offer Kevin Walters twice as much to jump ship.

4. Sterling defence of Duges and Fergo

OK, back to actual news. Blues advisor Peter Sterling – who says he is unsure if he will continue in the role – has mounted a spirited defence of Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson. "If I was in their position, I'd have done exactly the same thing," he told Triple M. "You need a day off because you're around the blokes so much that you actually need a break and you need a break from thinking about the game. I guess if I wasn't into golf like I am now and I didn't have family up there available, my way of relaxing … would have been to go to a pub on a beautiful part of the coast, looking out over the ocean and having a counter lunch, having a couple of beers and having a flutter that afternoon. And my preparation was meticulous. We had players who were inferior to those players on the Wednesday night. Are we exploring what they did on the Wednesday night? Did they have a bad game of golf?" Sterling doesn't think a probe into the NSW camp will uncover why they lost game three.

5. Shooting the messenger – or at least trying to take his phone

There was a slightly disturbing sideshow to the debut of Sydney Roosters rookie Victor Radley on Friday night. The youngster was supported by some Clovelly Crocodiles clubmates and one of them jumped the fence to congratulate him at full-time. Our over-enthusiastic fan quickly jumped back to the right side of the fence – but was pursued by security guards who pinned him down. Given that the game was over and the pitch invasion was brief, you could argue the force was just a little excessive. On the other hand, there is no defending the attempts of security to knock the mobile phone out of the hands of someone trying to film the incident. Things are pretty simple if you are in a customer-facing job: if you are trying to prevent someone filming what you're doing, you're admitting to the world you're doing something wrong.

6. RIP Adam Cooper and Evan Hawksworth

For some reason it's received very little publicity in these parts, but rugby league has suffered two playing fatalities in the space of the last six weeks. We mentioned 31-year-old Adam Cooper, of English amateur club Culcheth Eagles, a few weeks ago but at the time he had not been named. Cooper, a father of three, collapsed on the sidelines during a match. And then just two weekends ago, 14-year-old Stanley Rangers player Evan Hawksworth died after a head knock. Rugby league clearly does not want to advertise the dangers to players but it's important those who lose their lives playing the game are honoured. There have been a spate of playing deaths in recent years and it's a issue the sport needs to address fully and openly.

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