Position Vacant: NRL Referee. No Experience/Talent/Sense Needed

Another weekend of rugby league and another circus of dubious decisions. A week after the Bulldogs were cheated out of two points against the Dragons, round 11 provided yet more evidence that the NRL needs to seriously look at the standard of its referees.

Firstly, there was the Souths v Parra game. After 80 enthralling minutes of football, fans were cruelly robbed of an exciting finish when referee Brett Suttor called time as Souths attempted to feed a scrum seconds from full time. The match ended with a draw. Whether Souths would have turned this play into anything or not is not the point.

Then in the Wests Tigers v Brisbane game, the Campbelltown punters were left fuming with the controversial sin-binning of inspirational captain and half Benji Marshall at a crucial point late in the second half. The Broncos won 20-18.

The icing on the cake came in Sunday's clash between Manly and the Gold Coast at Skilled Stadium. Matty Orford would have been right to think he had the game all but wrapped up after his 75th minute field goal. That was until three minutes later when he was penalised in front of the posts for apparently taking out Titans fullback Preston Campbell in another dubious decision. Scott Prince added the extras and the Gold Coast won by a point.

In his post match interview Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler declared "“Week-in week-out we are discussing similar issues, similar situations and it is time something was done about it; The game is professional, the officialdom isn’t."

Hasler is right. All the games above were close games. Contoversial decisions decided their fate.

The role of referees should be to ensure that games are fair, fast and flowing. It is up to the two sides on the park to determine the result. When every round starts to bring with it yet more blunders and officiating errors, it is clear something needs to be done.

In recent weeks Rugby League has been the unfortunate subject of too much bad press and controversy from incidents that were out of the NRL's control. It's about time they did something about the one issue that clearly is within it.