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I don't want to get into conspiracy theories and question anyone's integrity here because quite frankly there's no facts pointing to such but what I do know is yet again from Jared Maxwell we didn't get a fair crack.
The same can be said for Ben Cummins and the facts back it up, under these two referees we have the worst penalty ratio (that's penalties for compared to penalties against) out of all 16 NRL teams and that's no surprise to us, I think all agree they're the two who we continually have issues with.
Unconscious bias is something that's been studied overseas and proven to be prevalent in officials of sporting codes, granted most studies done have been around country of birth but without doubt other biases could exist. Now I don't for a second believe that Cummins or Maxwell go out with the intent to advantage or disadvantage either team, I believe like players they are proffesionals who go out with the intention of having the best game possible and that includes remaining impartial. But humans are emotional creatures and studies show us that in the heat of a game uncious bias does exist in sporting officials.
I think the solution to this is a complex one but we must start with transparency and that has to involve the fans. The NRL has created a bubble around officials and that's dangerous, they've gagged coaches and they use terminology like 'following the process' to avoid accepting accountability.
Rather than building an environment that would encourage the growth of unconscious bias in referees we need to have a discussion about it, an educated and informed one but I fear that we're so regressive as a game it'll never happen and the current issues with officials will only continue to manifest.
A lot of people will dismiss any concerns about unfair officiating by saying we were just extremely undisciplined today and we only have ourselves to blame but when we got penalised as harshly and consistently as we did I think we have every right to ask the question why some of the infringements the Warriors made went unpunished?
I'm not saying we would have won but we deserved the chance to at least have a fair crack, I'll leave a photo 5 minutes out from full time (scores @ 12-10). Says it all really.
The same can be said for Ben Cummins and the facts back it up, under these two referees we have the worst penalty ratio (that's penalties for compared to penalties against) out of all 16 NRL teams and that's no surprise to us, I think all agree they're the two who we continually have issues with.
Unconscious bias is something that's been studied overseas and proven to be prevalent in officials of sporting codes, granted most studies done have been around country of birth but without doubt other biases could exist. Now I don't for a second believe that Cummins or Maxwell go out with the intent to advantage or disadvantage either team, I believe like players they are proffesionals who go out with the intention of having the best game possible and that includes remaining impartial. But humans are emotional creatures and studies show us that in the heat of a game uncious bias does exist in sporting officials.
I think the solution to this is a complex one but we must start with transparency and that has to involve the fans. The NRL has created a bubble around officials and that's dangerous, they've gagged coaches and they use terminology like 'following the process' to avoid accepting accountability.
Rather than building an environment that would encourage the growth of unconscious bias in referees we need to have a discussion about it, an educated and informed one but I fear that we're so regressive as a game it'll never happen and the current issues with officials will only continue to manifest.
A lot of people will dismiss any concerns about unfair officiating by saying we were just extremely undisciplined today and we only have ourselves to blame but when we got penalised as harshly and consistently as we did I think we have every right to ask the question why some of the infringements the Warriors made went unpunished?
I'm not saying we would have won but we deserved the chance to at least have a fair crack, I'll leave a photo 5 minutes out from full time (scores @ 12-10). Says it all really.
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