When I'm dealing with people, whether on a sporting, business or personal level, I often touch them on the shoulder to show I agree with them. It's respectfully done.
We can all tell when a player is acting in an aggressive manner towards a referee and that's when the NRL should take action. This happened last year when David Klemmer and fellow Bulldog James Graham respectively swore at and confronted a referee. It was an ugly incident and, rightly, the pair faced consequences.
Foran's punishment is laughable, but he did not help himself or the argument against these measures by pleading guilty to the charge. I realise he did not want to sit out a week through suspension by fighting it but his admission of 'guilt' only perpetuated the problem.
What's happening is political correctness gone mad.
Another area of officiating that annoys me is the lack of courage shown towards clear acts of foul play. Instead of sin-binning a player, or even sending them off in serious cases, officials hide behind putting a player on report. This doesn't punish the offending team in any way and, similarly, doesn't help opponents who sometimes lose a player through injury.
Referees seem too scared to make a decision, even though they have video officials ready to help.
Quite often a player is getting treatment and a quick check of the replay would tell them if a player should be sin-binned.
Sin-binning a player sends more of a message than putting them on report and is fairer. The best option is doing both.
What I have been impressed with is the effectiveness of the new bunker so far. I wasn't sure how successful it was going to be but they're mostly making the right decisions and quickly. It's taking only one or two replays, with four angles to choose from, meaning the game can restart more quickly.
It has been a success and I'm not surprised other sports are looking at doing the same. Whenever I watch rugby now, it seems like they're stuck in the dark ages with endless replays. But league was in the same position six months ago.
