Boti certainly got it right this time and IMO he was fairly easy on the referees with his comments.
Some of the more blatant eroors included:
1. Brad Davidson being physically pushed out of court in front of the scorebench and GW calling it "out of bounds".
2. In the last quarter when the Dragons were on a run Jacob Holmes took the ball into the backcourt and GW said that Jacob didn't have control? What a load of CRAP - he took the ball from the front court and DRIBBLED the ball in the back court. Last time I checked the rules that was a violation.
3. Darren Ng drove to the basket in the last quarter got creamed and no call. Everyone in the crowd knew there was contact - and it showed on the replay. Softer contact had been called throughout the game and they let this one go? End result Darren Ng CARRIED from the court.
I'm a fan of GW as a referee - but - the refereeing crew on this game were making soft calls, letting hard contact go and were extremely inconsistent. They were lucky that the excessive contact did not flair up. LC trash talking Burston was borderline but Burston PUSHING LC required a Tech Foul (which would have been called in any other competition, anywhere). It would be interesting to know what the referee evaluator said after the game - or did the referees justify there poor performance?

I think in #2 above it was Jingles not Holmes?

Look i am all for getting stuck into the refs when warranted and it is fair to say they had a dismal game .
But we , the sixers that is had a truckload of favourable calls early on in the piece and i think all players on the court had a gripe at some stage throughout the match .
The reason we never get calls late in the gmae is that the referees are sick to death of the little bald man whinging all match .
The officiating was well below average in respects to both teams and if we were to blow a 20 point 3/4 time lead i do not think they would be one bit to blame .

you forgot to mention groves pulling ng or sutto around the neck when going for a loose ball. I was at the game and some went are way, alot did not. Regardless of any coach shouting at the refs, a foul is a foul call it.

Refs should not be influenced to that extent by any coach complaining surely? I'm sure it happens a bit subconsciously but not more than that.

To be honest, I think that it may be the crowd that subconsciously gets to the refs. I'm not saying that the Dragons didn't get some crap calls, because they did. However it seems that at the Dome, you can always expect a couple of obvious calls not to be made because the refs know that when they come to Adelaide, the crowd is passionate and will have their say as well. I think that before the Dome matches they consciously decide not to let the crowd influence them, hence don't make some of the calls that need to be made

Sorry , maybe language was a tad strong but i do believe umpires subconsciously or otherwise , tend not to reward whinging coaches or players .
I feel we had some tough calls late but the dragons had plenty throughout the match .
I also think the more Phil whinges the more he will have to whinge about , if you get my drift .

No pleasing some people...

"The reason we never get calls late in the gmae is that the referees are sick to death of the little bald man whinging all match"

Half the negative comments about Phil on this site refer to him being, to relaxed, not caring enough or not getting into it.

go figure.

As a development umpire I often watch these games to see how the top umpires do it.

You had one of the most experienced ref's in the league alongside two others who officiated the Wnbl grand final last year.

I think Boti is very bias in his articles about the umpiring.

although a few calls were questionable I certainly do not see why the umpiring is being questioned so much from this game?

Boti has always been a ref basher!!!

I think the Ingles backcourt was a correct no call as was Ng getting blocked. Ng's motion towards the basket initiated the contact. However, on the reply it does show the defender jumping towards Ng so I guess that call is questionable and I think it was the correct result with Sixers getting the ball from the side.

Bring it.
If you are a Development Referee as stated then you are correct in saying that you watch these games to learn from senior officials. Yes we had one of the most experienced refrees in Geoff Weeks on the game along with the WNBL Grand Final officials. Unfortunately, they did not have a good game and decisions were inconsistent and their combined performance as a team was below their standards.
I agree that sometimes Boti does come on a bit heavy about referees, but, on this occasion he was correct.
I also agree that the inconsistent standard of calls went both ways until the last quarter when the Dragons were on the right side of questionable decisions. The no call on the centre line was incorrect because Ingles (sorry not Holmes) touched the ball in the front court and then went into the back court and dribbled the ball before it touched the court, this constitutes control and a violation.
KingJames. Your statement:
"I think the Ingles backcourt was a correct no call as was Ng getting blocked. Ng's motion towards the basket initiated the contact. However, on the reply it does show the defender jumping towards Ng so I guess that call is questionable and I think it was the correct result with Sixers getting the ball from the side."
If the referee was in position he would have seen that Darren drove STRAIGHT to the basket, AND AS YOU SAID, the defender jumped TOWARDS Darren.
It is therefore not just questionable, it was WRONG. Sure the 36esr got the ball back but Darren (or his substitute) should have been on the foul line.
As I stated earlier I would be interested in the Referee Evaluator's comments (but we never will)
as to the standard of the officiating on this game.
Last point - coaches do not affect experienced referees. If the coaches go too far then experienced/good referees deal with the matter. IMO the top flight referees don't take that much notice of the coaches or the crowd.

It's not as if Smyth is the only coach that 'whinges' or 'works' the referees. Goorjian and Joyce, just to name 2 are constantly talking to the refs.

The thing that irked me from the game was how many flops the Dragons players got away with, especially Ingles, yet when Davidson took 2 charges and hit the floor (one was was so obvious that even Carfino who virtually never critises decisions that disadvantage the Sixers in Adelaide, admitted that is was a charge)the refs decided to swallow their whistles.

Davidson had every right to feel hard-done by in this game - along with the missed charges, and body-checks he had to endure he was unlucky not to get the call on quarter time where he faked, got Hendrix in the air and drew contact. That call is not so automatic here as in the NBA, but players like Sam Cassell made a living out of perfecting the 'fake and jump into the defender' move to get themselves at the line.

I wise man called "Reesy" once said....."I believe the 50/50 calls should always go to the home team."

His theory is that to build crowd numbers you want as many home teams to win as possible. People love to watch winners! If the game is down to the wire and there is a 50/50 call, the benefit of the doubt should go to the home team. With more home teams winning, the whole competition would be closer, but the best teams would still rise to the top.

I don't know if I agree with Reesy 100%....but it's an interesting thought.

Visiting teams already feel like they get screwed by the refs here I think - that wouldn't help, but the idea has some merit.

Reminds me of batsmen in cricket getting the benefit of the doubt.

Anonymous 158436 - you have said....

"Also Hendrix's block on Ng wasn't a foul..yeah there was some body contact but if they call that a foul every big man in the league would get fouled out every game"

Umm if there is body contact its a foul....no ifs buts or maybes. IMO this is the reason that we have such inconsistency in the refereeing. How can you expect refs to 'let a little bit go' and still be consistent accross the board?

Rat10 is spot on with "made a living out of perfecting the 'fake and jump into the defender' move to get themselves at the line."
This is Hammer's speciality, and he's a flopper too.
It's a real shame that Ingles is following in his footsteps. Talk about FLOP!! Ha, it was funny when he got the block call towards the end, because...HE FORGOT TO FLOP....
This is Goorjian style of playing is becoming more common unfortunately, so maybe our guys need to learn how to jump into the opposition and then flay their arms all over to make it look like they have been fouled? It's all about 'faking-drawing-a-foul' and the refs get sucked in, especially like they did on Sat in the last qtr. Heal got them big time.

We speak of Ingles flopping, but the funny thing is that on one of Chappell's charges, even Ingles didn't think it was worth falling over for and the refs still called it a charge!

Some people actualy need to read the rules...........................

The situation with Brad getting the defender in to the air was correct by ref Haines!

A defender is permited to jump in the air and land in a different spot provided the spot was not taken at the time of departure.

So because Brad leaned in to the defender to obviously try to draw a foul with no time left it would have been a bad call to blow it on the defence.

Ask yourself the question "If Brad had not leaned in to cause contact, then would the defence have landed short of the offence????"

The answer is yes!!!

Good decision not to call it as a foul imo

with no bias

Wonder when the last time was the one of these guys refed Boti's game and he lost?

Boti often tries to use his position in the media to pull strings and gain an advantage.

Food for thought!

Man,Geoff Weeks was shocking,he was on another planet last saturday night,lot of missed calls in the whole game with charges not called and davidson,ng getting hammered,watched Geoff listen to Phil,but looks like it was ignored.Backcourt violation was obvious even a green shirter would have called it ahead of Weeks.Maybe its time Geoff to retire from Mens games so he can have WNBL games(less pressure)Bring Mildenhall in for a few games.

sooky, you sure? Sounded like he was just offering his comment on the officiating in that game and the NBL this season, not more than that...

ANON12 "The no call on the centre line was incorrect because Ingles (sorry not Holmes) touched the ball in the front court and then went into the back court and dribbled the ball before it touched the court, this constitutes control and a violation".

Since when has touched the ball become 'controlled' the ball?

In the TRAILs/CENTREs OPINION did his team gain control before taking it in to the back court. Not your opinion, not my opinion, but the Trails/Centres (depending on pre-game) opinion.

The three referees on the game were all experienced NBL referees. All 3 would have been very aware of the fact the Dragons would attempt to foul to stop the clock.

Two Dragons quite flagrantly made contact with Sutton which directly caused him to loose possesion of the ball. There is absolutely no excuse for the fact all three referees missed that.

If the 3 refs didn't cop a spray from the evaluator for almost deciding the game due to a referee error then that is part of the problem.

If the NBL do not review every game and take action if required then that is part of the problem.

If the League expect it's clubs, coaches and players to keep quiet when faced with such a poor service supplied to them by the NBL then the League itself needs to show the clubs that the League will deal with such poor refereeing.

Mistakes happen. Players, coaches, scoretable personel, club administrators and even referees make them.

Referees are the only ones that suffer no consequence for making them though and the League itself needs to change that before it can expect its clubs and fans to accept the refereeing they get.

Referring to the call against jingles on copeland. That was a makeup call for the terrible charge call about 2 minutes earlier (dont remember which players were involved but it was clearly wrong)

Quasi, that is the biggest load of c..p I've ever heard. How can the crowd influence the refs? If the refs are at all influenced by the crowd, then they are not doing their jobs professionally and impartially. You say "they consciously decide not to let the crowd influence them, hence don't make some of the calls that need to be made". Isn't this suggesting they ARE being influenced by the crowd by choosing to not make calls because of them?

There was plenty of pushing and shoving in the last quarter. One of the worst was when Davidson was PUSHED out of bounds. That was one of the most obvious and disgusting errors the refs made that night. YES, the refs would have been responsible for a loss in this situation. If you detect anger in this post, you are not wrong. I walked out of Saturday's game extremely disturbed at the job the refs had done and what the outcome might have been.

Isaac, did you ask any of the Dragons players if they felt they were hard done by in Adelaide by the refs. The only thing I sympathise with them is the schedule they have had to endure in the last week. Too many games including one on Friday night and then to travel the next day to play again that night. That would be tough on any team but I don't think the refs in this game contributed to their problems. To add to another comment in a different thread, a schedule like that would hardly contribute to them losing a championship. A stronger team would weather that hardship but still rise to the top.

EC,

'Isn't this suggesting they ARE being influenced by the crowd by choosing to not make calls because of them?'

Yes, that is exactly what I meant - they may try to be professional and not let anything impact on the calls other than the play, but in consciously not letting the crowd influence the call, they go the opposite way

I think the schedule is fairly rough for all teams at one stage or another.

Sounds like the refereeing might've been something of a 'special occasion' for the Dragons game given that everyone seems to be talking about it!

Isaac, I value your in depth knowledge of the game and your opinions, but had you been at this game, I am sure you would have thought the officiating was below par.

was definitely below par, inconsistent umpiring.

Although i called it at the time, in hindsight i don't believe Jingles crosscourted.

Sutto got a harsh deal with the Turnover he got after being fouled twice causing him to lose control of the ball (offence player disadvantaged by contact = foul???)

Foul count looks normal for the closeness of the game.