Hopefully they watch the game and accept that the Wildcats having a big crowd which influences the refs (along with Gleeson tirelessly working them over) is no longer something that can just be ignored.

Zodiac kicking off the dumb statements... So in what league, in what team sport, does home court advantage not exist?

Good investment of $2000 especially if it helps to shut up Gleeson's constant whine. It's hard to reconcile how the occasional blow up in the heat of the moment draws a T when the regular non stop stuff goes unpunished.

Im a cats supporter and I hope this helps shut Trev and Deans CONSTANT yelling out "Foul!". Its a bad look for the game and needs to reigned in.

Also Fordey, every single call made by the refs are in the moment. You get to plan for days or weeks to get your game plan good enough to win.

If the refs came out after the game and said "the coach didnt get his rotations right and didnt call timeouts and the right time and didnt run the plays well enough" there would be riots!

Well that's the NBL end of season staff party paid for. Pretty much the only result.

I agree with FSTOS. I think it's a bargain at $2k.
I've no doubt it was premeditated with ownership blessing, and that ownership would have expected and been happy to pay more.

I am sure he is right, but the NBL will never admit their referees are the worst now since the NBL started. Hence the fine. All the reviews do now and I have been harping on about it forever is highlight how bad they are.

Sydney coach getting hit with a wet lettuce leaf = league protecting Perth. Hoops finest logic at work there.

I am sure most people dont talk like that unless they are 14 and above.

You could argue that all that Perth cooking aided Forde's career a fair bit which makes it all the more funnier

Hypocritical from Forde. He was all.for Gleeson riding the refs when he was a Cats assistant because the winning allowed him to falsely take partial credit for the success the club has had.

Then once the assistant coach failed foup to get rid of Gleeson eventuated and they all jumped ship, the walking tattoo magazine had to wear his big boy pants and prove he actually could back up his claims of being a reason for the Perth success by taking on a Head Coaching role which when he held one previously in the SBL, he showcased all of his potential by sitting in a 2-3 zone for an entire season whilst riding the pre-nbl Jervis train on offense.

Move forward to present day and the only thing dented more than his hip pockets now is that ego that hold on, maybe I wasn't as good as that 2-3 zone made me believe; or maybe Trev was better than we assistants gave him credit for, or maybe Nielsen was the only decent assistant after all.

Either way Forde now blaming the very system which got him his current employer is one of the more hypocritical things you will ever hear. Look at the positives Fordey, if you don't make finals with the kings and you lose your job, you can always go back to NBL1 and see if that 2-3 some works again

If anything pulling this shit will just subconsciously piss that human element regardless and might see some quick impatient techs slapped up quicker than normal... regardless of who he's playing. Worry about those sets and stress weather Casper is feeling it or not. Not the refs.... head down do your job..

Targeting one team and sighting shane Heal's twitter was comical.

Forde is just realising he's not that good a coach and is looking for a scapegoat other than his own ego / lack of gameplan. Way too arrogant and the fact he had a crack at Gleeson shows how little he respects people who played a major role in him even getting the gig he has now.

Forde was articulate and provided context to his points. Sure Trev would not care about his comments, they won.

As anon #768 points out his point was nuanced and he also highlighted areas his team needs to improve in.

This has a long way to play out, Forde is earning his chops.

"If the refs came out after the game and said "the coach didnt get his rotations right and didnt call timeouts and the right time and didnt run the plays well enough" there would be riots!"


Nonsense. Coaches (and players) get criticised and called out on their performance constantly. Behind their back, to their face, on forums.....constantly. If they screw up enough it eventually costs them their job

They accept that and move on. If it came from the refs they'd probably laugh about it. It's only officials that need to try and suppress criticism and levy fines against it

Refs continue to be Perth's true MVP.

With the sheer lack of playing talent they must be commended on never failing to come up trumps for them over the past 30+ years.

"I haven't seen the same happen to Gleeson, Vickerman or Goorj."

Then you didn't watch the recent Hawks v Melb game, 777, where Aylen gave Goorj an "official warning" for "barking" at him. Then, later in the same game, asked Vickerman to stop "barking" at him. Aylen used the same word to describe the behaviour each time but had a different response from him.

If I wore a tin-foil hat, I could ask "who owns Melbourne", But I don't so I won't.

There's no conspiracy for Perth or United. The refs are just poor, and its because the league doesnt invest enough in them being better. Spending money on refs doesnt get you clicks and buzz so they ignore it and the end result is refereeing that renders a lot of games unwatchable.

#841005 There will be a lot more of it to come as Heal is part of the Paul Smith family now, appointed head coach of Sydney Flames.

I do think the reffing has been poor of late, more that they haven't a sense of the game and the occasion, and have been inserting themselves in the game too much.

The AFL has been the gold standard in this, rather than embracing calling every call the same, in close games and significant games (like the grand final), the tendency has always been to put the whistle away more than at other times, to "let them play".

Now some philosophically will disagree with that, and I know in the NBL the refs will be actively trying to do the opposite.. to call every call the same, but that is where my criticism as a fan and a spectator comes from.

When I watch the game at full speed and have to make a call, I'd often find I am wrong on slow mo/another angle, and the commentators do too - who obviously watch a lot of basketball, surely this has to be taken as a factor when criticising individual calls. The fact refs often err to what was likely to happen i.e. this player often flops, or this guy generally plays top D, becomes fair in that scenario.

They can't replay every call they are less than 100% certain of, or didn't get 100% vision of, because if we are fair to how hard it is to see things definitely in real time, they'd be replaying 60% of the calls on the court. And that I would not want to see.

Reffing has been ok this season, they have just failed to keep the sense of occasion and put the whistle away a little at the end.

I'd prefer a 50/50 whistle to go against my team (Wildcats) when they are 5 points up with 2 minutes to play, than for my team, just to keep it interesting. Having to tackle that kind of adversity is good for a team anyway - build resilience and strength in those situations.. can come back and help later.

So Hopscotch, your complaint is that the referees are doing their job?

I like Forde despite a great dislike for Sydney.

He made good points but nothing new.

Yes some players get the benefit of calls because of their positive reputation, the the opposite happens with rookies or lesser known players like Jordan Hunter and Vodanovich.

Its been like that for a long time.

Gaze got favoured.
DJ gets favourable calls too if I am being honest.

Forde himself was the beneficiary of calls when standing behind Gleeson, AND he got years of favourable calls (or no calls) when Damien Martin harassed opposition players on defence.

Not once did he bitch about the player calls then, now suddenly its a problem for him.

"So Hopscotch, your complaint is that the referees are doing their job?"

Is this intended to be a gotcha?

I pretty much outlined why I think like I do, and covered off the very same perspective you illustrate here.

I.e. I can see that the referees are doing their job, it is a difficult job, but there are alternate ways to that job, such as adjusting away from making calls on a constant basis, to "letting them play", at crucial moments in the game/late in the game.

So an expectation might be that they may call soft fouls earlier in the game, but make the barrier higher in the last 2 minutes if it is close, or be less likely to call something against a team that is slightly behind/coming back, if the certainty of the call is significantly less than 100% or 50/50.

The above isn't an attack on the referees though, because it isn't up for them to go their own way - the league in general would have to be in favour of reffing that way, I think the commentators err that way, and some players might (the one's that would prefer more games get decided on their effort not a reffing call), others would want consistency as much as possible.

And hey, I am not dressing up my comment as anything more than personal opinion/preference.

It did not in any way say alternate views are wrong, or that my own preference is superior.

It is my preference, I think if you read into most commentators their views are similar.

Either rigidly call things the same and make very few errors, or just give a little bit of leeway when it comes to the flow and direction of the game, and try not to make soft 50/50 calls critical to the game outcome (better a no call than a 50/50 call on a soft foul putting the game out of reach).

Either way, across a season, a team that can say a single call or couple of calls robbed them of the the cup, is probably a team that had to put in an extra 5% through the game and/or season to prove they stood above.

If you lose by a call or two, you are too close in performance to the other team to really complain if they win. With unavoidable human error any team that can't separate themselves more than that is always going to be vulnerable.

Or at least if I am coaching that is what I'd say to my guys week in week out.
(I'm not but when leading a staff team I handle things the same way.. very loathe to take agency away from them.. it comes back to bite you).

So much of this stems from one thing - players (and coaches) are absolute masters of cheating. So much so that top level sport is becoming a contest of who can cheat the most and get away with it. Christ, I did it when I was up against a better player/athlete (99% of the population) and would hold, scrag and do whatever else possible to help me even the field.

Players in the NBL and AFL are now so good at holding where a ref/umpire can't see, throwing heads back when no contact (Cotton, Sobey, Goulding etc) that the poor refs are really up against it. It's almosst becoming a guessing game. "Did he get hit or not".

I don't remember it being as prevalent in the mid 80's when I started watching but that was obviously a differrent era.

I highy recommend doing what I did. Stop worry about refs/umpires when you hit the age of around 15/16 and start focusing on what the players on your team are doing or not doing. Therapeutic and you will learn plenty.

Hopscotch, your complaint about the referees is that they keep making the correct call, even when you'd prefer they make the incorrect call.

This is silly.

" So much of this stems from one thing - players (and coaches) are absolute masters of cheating."

Oh my lord Perth have been absolute shockers at it. Adelaide fans would boo every time they got away with a cheapie and holding etc and eventually umpires would catch on them Perth fans would jump on here and complain because they felt entitled for their team to get away it/were too one eyed to notice.

Goorj teams were also notorious for pushing the boundaries of legal defence.

Was always confident Adelaide never did it because that would require a semblance of effort on the defensive end, something they haven't done since perhaps the 80s. They’re more like traffic cones!

I always felt it became so rampant that other teams were shmucks for not turning that behaviour into their ordinary game plan.

These days I think refs are more strict on any contact at all to enable that offensive space for higher scoring

" Hopscotch, your complaint about the referees is that they keep making the correct call, even when you'd prefer they make the incorrect call.

This is silly."

There are elements of grey area and discretion for refs, you live in a black and white world particularly in your interpretation of the rules. I would suggest, respectfully, that this is silly.

Of course there are, but "call it differently at the end of a close game" isn't a grey area, it's silliness.

" For future reference they are referees and not umpires. People complain about your and you're"

Ref/ump are largely interchangeable terms and not grammatical.

Your/re are not interchangeable and using incorrectly is a grammatical error.

""call it differently at the end of a close game" isn't a grey area, it's silliness."

Call it differently was meant to be taken as don't call fouls without there being a decent degree of contact, and a great deal of certainty that the foul occurred in the late stages of the game when things are close.

Not to make a call for the opposite team, not to ignore definite fouls and the like.

Just that where they may be calling soft 50/50 calls throughout the game, probably let those go at the end rather than guess.

Imagine a team is 4 points down, 15 seconds left a guy charges to the ring, the defender slides across and it is one of those situations where half would call it one way and the other half the other, a real grey area.. instead of calling charge or foul, just let the play go on. If the ball had ended up in the hands of offence anyway, making the call to give the ball to the defence, and effectively end the game, it probably not desirable from a number of perspectives.

Note I am not saying it is the wrong call. Just saying sometimes in years past, or in other codes, they may have been a little bit less rigorous in making those calls, and it wasn't all bad as a viewer when it was like that.

Just read me as saying I think the refs have been a little more zealous with the whistle this year than others, and it has detracted from the game a bit. In the early stages of a game it can be forgiven a bit, because they may be trying to set a standard, and you don't really feel it is "fixing" the result like a similar call late in the game may be.

What's the point of setting a standard if you're going to abandon it later in the game?

Do you actually think refs call the last few mins of a close game the exact same way as the rest of the game? And do you actually think they should?

There's already a tech foul for flopping because it brings the game into disrepute. Now we just need a tech foul for throwing back the head when there’s no contact, as Cotton and Goulding frequently do, and that would take some of the pressure off refs from crowds who imagine that some wrong was committed when it wasn’t.

Judgement calls and 'variable calling’ won’t work because we all have different standards and levels of what we’ll tolerate - better to call consistently to the absolute rules than to have to start second-guessing on any calls.

I’d rather see the game called tightly enough that it doesn’t turn into basketbrawl, which is all that boot head Brian Taylor wanted to see in the bad old days, but loosely enough that they’re allowed to play. If it’s a foul on a shot which doesn’t really affect the player taking the shot then let it go, but if someone hits the shooter hard to make sure there’s no chance of a score then call it as at least a regular foul and consider the USF.

People like to attack refereeing as if it is so bad it ruins the game. I don't think it’s actually that bad.

If refs were absolute in their approach, we would get results we wouldn’t want, if the rules have to be spelled out so detailed as to require absolute calling, it would get messy real fast and produce a worse result.

AFL is notoriously hard for umpiring - we want to avoid turning basketball into AFL if we can avoid it.

Nice to hear. So why are they calling one and not the other? When was the last time you saw the head move being called or warned? Perhaps I missed those in all the minutes I've watched

About "referees" vs "umpires" debate, from the FIBA rules:

Art. 45 Referees, table officials and commissioner
45.1 The referees shall be a crew chief and 1 or 2 umpire(s).

About the foibles of referees, if refs weren't conned by flops, there'd be no need for a special rule about flopping. Also, it seemed to be the perception that you had to fall to get a flop. You could get drilled hard in the chest but if all you did was step backwards, no call. I would prefer to see play on be the rule (unless it was a charge) and if a player wants to lie about on the ground leaving his team a player down, then so be it.

Since the flop rule came in, I've also seen players take decent hits, go down and get a warning. I challenge any ref to take a bump from Nate and hold their ground.

Same with the theatrical waving the arms on inbounds in the last 2 minutes. It's always been against the rules for players to break the plane. But now you'll see referees delay the inbound pass to wave their arm up and down even if the nearest defensive player is at halfway.

And the reason it's done is that they've changed the rule to make it an automatic technical for breaking the plane in the last two minutes, even if the team has not yet received a warning.

"They wave their arm up and down because that is what they have to do. Again another clueless muppet"

I know it's in the rules.

The point you missed in an attempt to cover your anonymous self in glory, is it's a pointless rule because it was already against the rules to break the plane. Instead of enforcing the rule, they add another rule for the Crew Chief (or umpires) to enforce. So, they make the big show of waving their arms up and down because it's in the rules and it doesn't improve the game. (apart from giving their armpits an airing near the end of a game?) If a player at half way can break the plane on a base line inbound, that would be an impressive wingspan.

And it's the same with the flop rule. The rules they had before could've dealt with it if the Crew Chief (or umpires) didn't reward floppers. But their judgement let them down and the Top Officials had to step in with another rule.And it is a bad rule (IMHO) because the same people charged with the responsibility of determining a charge/block/no-call are the same people charged with determining a charge/block/no-call/flop. You could take a charge and, in the opinion of the ref, be called for flopping. And this could hypothetically lead to you being ejected. A rough penalty for playing defence and taking a hit.

it's a pointless rule because it was already against the rules to break the plane. Instead of enforcing the rule,

[There's no conspiracy for Perth or United. The refs are just poor, and its because the league doesnt invest enough in them being better. Spending money on refs doesnt get you clicks and buzz so they ignore it and the end result is refereeing that renders a lot of games unwatchable.]

Spot on

And this also explains why Perth gets the biggest advantage- the biggest, loudest crowd which is what influences the referees.

So i have a question. How do any of you know what they invest?

[he NBA/NFL/Premier League/AFL all spend millions on their officials and everyone still complains.]

I disagree, I don't often find much to complain about with regards to NBA refs, other than perhaps the usual superstar treatment afforded to the likes of Lebron.

Certainly it's much better than NBL. So this is what the NBL should aspire to.

" There's no conspiracy for Perth or United."

I agree with that portion. I think we have established fans can make a difference in calls, and some teams' defensive choices (the hidden cheapies of your Perth’s, Goorj type teams) are what distinguish difference between how one team is called to another.

I don’t think NBL refs are as bad as people say. They might fluff it sometimes, but they’re less painful than AFL umpires

KET AFL might be the hardest sport to officiate in the world

It's as fast as basketball, with more players on field and rules that are just as technical

On top of that, you need to be super fit to umpire AFL unlike basketball

The bigger problem in AFL is they change the rules on a yearly basis. Not just the interpretations but usually the rules themselves too

So it's fair to be a little more forgiving of perceived blunders by AFL umps I reckon

In other words there's continual frustration at AFL umpiring standards too just like NBL, but the reasons are more systemic in nature and its a little more understandable that this is the case

Yes AFL is tough to umpire

The problem with watching it for 3+ decades is memory fades and you get rose tinted glasses about the past. Not to mention the technology and coverage wasn't there expose every nook and cranny. The only thing that kind of time does is turn someone into a fuddy duddy!

IMO implementing technology has shown many occasions where commentators felt they were 50/50 and they picked it a different way to the refs. That tells you it’s not so much "wrong" as “can go either way” and if they’re the ones being challenged and not “blatant error” that’s pretty good.

I’ve also found on here different fans feel things should be called different ways, and they’re always eyeing off the errors that happen to their team and not the missed out ones on the other team. I’d suggest errors are statistically minimal, and roughly even, skewed to the home team.

“ Please don't compare apples with oranges.”

It’s a perfectly fine comparison - two things don’t need to be exact to extract a comparison, it’s not a false equivalency.

The other side of the coin is that the players react better to the calls. They know the LeBrons will always get the breaks and, like playing-time, they have to earn that "exalted" status.

IMO, to say that stars getting special treatment is OK, is contradictory to good reffing in itself. How in hell can calling one foul and not another based, on who is involved, is nearly the epitomy of bad reffing?