Article from Paul Kent

[Deleted member 3518]

Its so true. But I don't understand it. Why would the NRL not want bottom 8 sides to do well. Look at the Tigers - NQ and Parramatta crowds already this season some of the biggest. WT are a very popular side around Australia with a strong brand - most peoples second team. The tigers making the finals would bring a whole lot more to the game (and NRL HQ) than some of the teams up there that make it every year.

Give the battlers a go. Today's refs are a bunch of bludgers and we know what we (WT) are going to get before a ball has been kicked.

It’s not really the nrl , it’s the referees understanding that if they majorly stuff up , or make a decision that can cause the daily telegraph crisis merchants to have a headline for the week , they might be refereeing Newtown vs north’s the next week . It’s 💯 self preservation .

 

[tigerbalm]

So I’m not paranoid!

Printing this article to show my therapist

 

[supercoach]

I dont often agree with him but referees "managing" a game is a complete travesty of fairness.It has been going on since Harrigan and is getting progressively worse.
The job of a referee is to be impartial and neutral in their rulings,unfortunately now they decide who they feel should win the game and act accordingly

So true and the NRL keep introducing rules that give the refs more discretionary power. So now with things like the six again rule they have total control of results with zero accountability.

No doubt it’s a tough gig and you will never please everyone being a ref, but where we are at present is hopeless as it’s the same every week...if it is not Sutton,it’s Cumins or Klein

 

[851]

LOL, everyone loves Kent now.

I’ve never minded him tbh
Calls a spade a spade

I'm the same. I only ready dislike pooper, buzz and weedler.

You forgot Creepy Crawley, he is a knob, and he hates us

 

[69-05-41]

How is it that referees notice markers splitting early to shut-down Cook after only five rounds but are yet to notice one of Latrine's many dog-shots?

 

[Elderslie_Tiger]

LOL, everyone loves Kent now.

I’ve never minded him tbh
Calls a spade a spade

So Cheating and subconscious are the same thing?????????

 

[hobbo1]

LOL, everyone loves Kent now.

I’ve never minded him tbh
Calls a spade a spade

So Cheating and subconscious are the same thing?????????

Depends how many beers you’ve had ?

 

[twentyforty]

LOL, everyone loves Kent now.

I’ve never minded him tbh
Calls a spade a spade

So Cheating and subconscious are the same thing?????????

Not guilty..it was my subconscious acting out.

 

[davey_farrell]

I actually think Kenty has a soft spot for the Tigers and is a big fan of Madge. I dont believe he rags us out like our supposed supporter Hooper and Buzz /Crawley who hate us with a passion.
I personally thought it was a good article and very true!!

 

[Cairnstigers]

Can't stand Kent but a valid article.

Hope PVL is reading it.

I have to agree
Never really liked what he wrote about us because it was almost like he was sticking the daggers in
I think it's the best article I have seen him write
And it is very relevant in today's game
Those at the top should and must read this to understand where the game has been going wrong
The referees seem to have a pre conceived idea how the game will roll and for that matter who will or who should win
They are looking to hard to penalise players because of previous indiscretions
Like Paul Kent said
The refs need to get the feel of the game
Not all games are played the same way so the refs should adjust to suit the current game
They shouldn't adjust to suit last week's game

There are so many things wrong with the Nrl
The Nrl needs to have a complete Audit from top to bottom
It's judiciary system
It's refereeing
It's salary cap systems
It's third party payment system
These are just 4 areas that need addressing because these four areas are extremely inconsistent among clubs and players
It is creating divide and is the cause of disparity between the top clubs and the bottom clubs

 

[momo_amp_medo]

This article points out what has been so obvious to fans of so called “not fancied” sides like the west’s tigers.
But is anyone listening?
Madge has proven that he is not the one to criticise referees but even he has now had enough of what is absolute rubbish that is being dished out and what is costing us game after game.
I’m sick of it and in this instance I congratulate Paul Kent for putting it into print.

 

[hsvjones]

I’m still livid 2 days later 🤬

Agree mate...
I normally stayed pissed for about and hour or so after the game and move on - Plenty of experience unfortunately. But this one has really pissed me off because we were so blatantly taken out of the game and not even given a chance. We should of had an 8 point try, LM in Sin Bin twice or even a send off to be honest and consistently 6 again / penalty calls to them... All you get from others outside the club is you are just a salty fans with a shit team but when the player gets charged and article like this come out it justifies the so called whinging.. But it doesn't give us the 2 points that should be ours..

I am still pissed and even Wayne knows we were robbed by the way he carried on in the dressing rooms after the game.. So we NEED to do this again this week v Manly or this means nothing but for some reason when clubs play games like this they struggle the next week... Fingers crossed

 

[tigerballs]

I’m still livid 2 days later ?

I’m more livid at the bunker for the kick , and lack of send off at the Nofa incident . At least a stint in the bin . Sutton is the worst referee , especially with us. He clearly has all our defence structures and “tricks” , and as such penalises us accordingly .

I’m livid at the whole lot ..
Sutton’s lucky he’s not my neighbour

Would you egg his house ? A bit of knock and run hobbo ?

Nah
I’d drain the oil from his car ..
Write the word “Wanker” on his front lawn with roundup ..
Real nasty stuff .

Write "turd" then tell him there's a turd on his lawn. He'll find it in a couple of days.

 

[tigerballs]

I dont often agree with him but referees "managing" a game is a complete travesty of fairness.It has been going on since Harrigan and is getting progressively worse.
The job of a referee is to be impartial and neutral in their rulings,unfortunately now they decide who they feel should win the game and act accordingly

So true and the NRL keep introducing rules that give the refs more discretionary power. So now with things like the six again rule they have total control of results with zero accountability.

No doubt it’s a tough gig and you will never please everyone being a ref, but where we are at present is hopeless as it’s the same every week...if it is not Sutton,it’s Cumins or Klein

In the very first game this season, the ref called a forward pass from the half to the prop at the kick off. It was line ball. Haven't seen it before or since, even though 60% of them are forward.

 

[Harvey]

Good on him for writing the article, but this is nothing new to last weekend or this season.

It has been happening for years, but last weekend the pre conceived ideas and inconsistencies were so obvious that unconscious Freddy passed out on a Glebe medium strip could have spotted it

 

[jirskyr]

Kent has written this article before..nothing changed..nothing will change..you just have to adapt ..overcome adversity..it makes winning sweeter..

Ultimately I agree. You have to overcome the unconscious bias or issues. The exact same concept applies to home grounds - it shouldn't matter where you play football or what the fans yell out, but it does matter, and you have to be able to overcome it.

This topic often makes me think of the Roosters from 2000-2010; my ex-girlfriend supported Roosters. From 2000-2004 Roosters finished 2nd or better 3 times (1 Minor Prem), made 4 Grand Finals. Whilst that's a great record of finals matches, it's also very tough to swallow 1/4 Grand Final wins, despite even one being sweet by itself. Including 2010, Roosters made 5 GFs in 11 seasons and "only" won 1. Obviously Tigers were 1/1 during that same period.

Come around to 2013-2019, Roosters won the Minor Premiership 4x and finished 2nd twice in 7 seasons. It's still underachieving a little that they were MP 4 times and only made the GF on two of those occasions, but the overall campaign was 7 seasons 3/3 Grand Finals. I hate the Roosters but they continually put themselves in the position to win those premierships, even though they actually had a lot of heartache on the journey and lost a lot of key moments, particularly 2014-2015 when they tumbled out of the finals twice (2W 4L).

The problem for Tigers is we play well sometimes, and about half of those times we don't get the choccies. That's normal. But when you play badly the rest of the time, the sum total is about 40% win rate, which will never take you to the finals.

If we play as well as the Souths game every week, we'll win about half of the matches (or better), the refs will start to unconsciously favour us in calls and we develop a greater momentum. Once you hit that place, you then control whether or not you play regular finals football, not reliant on the bounce of the ball or video ref decision.

 

[Sully]

At last an impartial voice for the fans who have to suck it up every week. It was so obvious in that game that the two teams were being refereed differently up to that time that the ref puts the whistle away with the discretional penalties in a close game. Three incidents with Latrell and not one advantage given to us from any of them. It was truly a disgraceful performance from Sutton. **And then the team that finished equal at fulltime gets not 1 point in the Dally M votes either.**

Wow really? I had no idea ?

Worse yet, Latrine Mitchell got 3 points for his disgraceful sportsmanship

 

[tigerap]

Kent has written this article before..nothing changed..nothing will change..you just have to adapt ..overcome adversity..it makes winning sweeter..

Ultimately I agree. If you are a club that only plays well on occasion, then yeah you are going to get skittled in probably half the matches, even if you are playing well.

It’s been like this for the last 4 or so years....Tigers rarely get the “ rub of the green”

 

[AdelaideTiger]

Nothing new, we will get every 50/50 this week and then it goes back to normal the following. At the end of the day you make your own luck, if you as a team consistently have good line speed in defence the referees are going to give you the benefit of the doubt when someone races out of the line a makes a stop. If you consistently don't bother to get onside the ref might assume you were inside the 10m even if you weren't. The referees are human, sometimes they will make a call based on the result of a play instead of actually seeing how it happened. I can't begrudge them for that. I blame the NRL for providing the current frame work of the rules. How does it make sense to take an onfield referee away but speed the game up?
All that being said, how does latrell Mitchell commit a foul that earns him a 3-4 week vacation and yet not get punished in the moment? He needed to be sent for 10 or tigers awarded an 8 point try. If WTs are not even afforded an apology this week then we know that Kenty may be on to something.
In the meantime Tigers need to prove they are a professional outfit every week before they start getting favourable calls from the officials, last week was a good start.

 

[Alex Seyfarth's #1 Fan]

Don’t mind Kent, he is not afraid to point the finger at the NRL.
Good article, but will fall on deaf ears at HQ, Sutton will keep getting rolled out week in and week out, and he will ride the top weight. He is a appalling ref, but my guess he will still get rewarded with the top games like SOO and GF.

Totally frustrating the lack of accountability at HQ

Not just that, but he will get Origins, important test matches, grand finals, etc. I've never seen a referee involved in so many controversial games, AND YET THEY ROLL HIM OUT IN ALL OF OUR GAME'S MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS!!!! What the heck.

Even though we got rolled against the Cowboys, the game was so much better. Cecchin is the best ref in the game. Do you even notice him? I forgot he was there. If a ref does their job, you don't even know they're there.