“CONTACT wing attack.” “Contact goal defence.” “Contact centre.” “Contact contact contact…” Listening to a netball commentary reminds me in part of a telephone operator with obsessive compulsive disorder coupled with an over-zealous mother of toddlers.
The constant “contact” from the miked-up umpires means that I generally find something more interesting to do.
Now it’s happening in rugby league too. I could only watch a few minutes of the Warriors’ match at the weekend, but heard more from the referee than I did from the commentators, including a memorable “You can’t talk to me like that!”
It’s fair to say I’m not the biggest fan of netball anyway (the game would be much improved by removing the contact rule altogether and having a ball that explodes at random each quarter), but I see that sport has now drifted into the PC realm inhabited by rugby, league and cricket.
Players are not allowed to be critical of the officials. Catherine Latu of the Northern Mystics said last week “A bit of consistency would be nice. If they’re going to get away with it, we should be able to get away with it, too.”
She was talking about a few decisions that potentially cost her team the game (they lost 55-57 to the Thunderbirds). Southern Steel’s Daneka Wipiti was even more forthright, saying “It was nice to be playing seven [players] in the first three quarters. When you’re playing against nine, it’s really hard.”
The latter comment was a bit over the top. As it turns out, the trans-Tasman netball competition doesn’t have a specific rule around commenting on umpires, but on the hoof, CEO Anthony Everard said teams might get a warning letter (oooooh!) or a fine from now on.
English premier football imposes touchline bans on managers who say things like “it would be nice to get a strong and fair referee.” The NRL hands out fines to players and coaches all the time for ref criticism. Cricket has bans and more bans and fines. Rugby is so lacking in characters who speak their mind due to the risk of being fined.
Being the person with the whistle is a tough job. Nevertheless, they have chosen to do it, and they must realize that while one team might love them (or at the very least not criticize them) after a game, the other team and their fans will over-analyse their mistakes and probably blame them.
Surely they were fans or players before they started and knew what they were letting themselves in for.  So why must they be so zealously protected from criticism? Sure, criticism is fine when it doesn’t roll over into vitriolic abuse.
We sports fans are adult enough to know that Wipiti’s comments, for example, are a bad attempt to disguise that the Steel were not good enough. Latu’s, however, were a correct summation of what robbed her team.
There are some average referees doing Super 15 rugby this year. Players and coaches can be criticized willy-nilly.  But officials are surrounded by this “cone of silence”.
And the people who have a major impact on the game are protected because criticism of them “sends the wrong signal.”
If their performance is a major talking point after a game, then surely it’s worthy of analysis and action?