I don't agree about the refereeing standard being bad - it's more or less the same as it's always been, just that there is only ever more attention and scrutiny year on year. In parallel to this, players are more and more professional than they've ever been, and there is an extremely thin line between legal and illegal.
It's selective memory by some fans too. Some people really believe the officiating in the 80s, say, was superior to now, but sit down and watch a few matches from back then and see the howlers that occurred, howlers that were accepted in the wash because there was no alternative system. The standard of football wasn't specifically any better than now either, just different, and depending on your tastes or your nostalgia, for better or worse.
Surely people remember the 90s, when we finally got video refereeing and the howlers were mostly ironed out of the game. But along with the technology came an increasing reliance on interpretation for close calls, and these grey areas are now the ones that people get frustrated over.
So case in point Sharks v Cowboys last weekend. I don't honestly think Prior stripped the footy but that wasn't a video call, that was a live judgement, and they are your only two options - either you get the video to look at everything, or you give the majority of control to the on-field refs. I do honestly think Gallen dropped the football, and whilst I don't doubt there was some mess in the ruck, it is his responsibility to clear the ruck and play the football correctly. Gallen has history, I said it before, and you can only cry wolf so often before the refs stop listening. Also Gallen didn't have to surge at the line like a hero and play the ball in the teeth of crouched on-line defenders, he could have dropped 10 metres out and let his team set up for a field goal. But that's Gallen for you, he does what he thinks is best and sometimes his team pays for it, sometimes he just touches the ball too often.
I can't cop these coaches blaming specific close calls as being season-ending. Sharks simply weren't good enough, they've been limping all season and never managing to recapture the form from 2016\. They made too many mistakes, gave away too many penalties and messed up their game plan on Sunday. Andrew Fifita going rogue wide at the death and dropping the football - perfect example of Cronulla's entire season. Flanagan embarrassed himself coming out in the presser with a sob sheet of calls he didn't like.
I won't ever forget 1989, when Bill Harrigan penalised Bruce McGuire for using a retreating offside Steve Walters as a shepherd. Ridiculous call, boils my blood even to today, that an attacker should be penalised for pushing against a player who has not retreated the 10\. But that's not the only reason Balmain lost, Balmain lost for all the other reasons too - McNeil getting ankle-tapped, the Elias crossbar field goal, Junior dropping the football with the line open, Tigers failing to defuse the O'Sullivan bomb near full time, Warren Ryan subbing on defenders to protect the 6-pt lead.
Football goes for 80 mins and if you don't play well for the full 80, you are every chance of being beaten in a way you don't like.
