Veteran referee Ben Cummins has revealed he warned his son off turning into a rugby league referee and as a substitute inspired him to officiate Aussie guidelines.
The 49-year-old will reportedly grasp up the boots on the season’s finish in response to the SMH, and has dominated over 442 video games, 14 Origin clashes and 5 grand finals.
Cummins’ tally makes him the sport’s most skilled referee, having officiated in additional video games than Bill Harrigan (392), Ashley Klein (371) and Matt Cecchin (369).
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The skilled whistleblower has skilled the wave of criticism that comes with refereeing within the NRL and his 18-year-old son Patrick officiates a rival sport.
“He thought about taking up refereeing rugby league, but I persuaded him to go with AFL,” Cummins mentioned.
“I’m glad he did. It’s less aggressive. In AFL, teams lose points if parents are abusive. He loves it. He’s got a grand final this weekend. He’s a massive Wests Tigers fan, but he just loves his AFL umpiring.”
Cummins’ final sport as an NRL referee will come on Saturday when the Dragons face off towards the Knights.
He believes he wasn’t “wanted” within the refereeing squad and pointed to his lack of massive sport appointments as a cause behind his retirement.
Cummins additionally believes the heavy criticism levelled towards referees might see rugby league with a scarcity of high quality whistleblowers sooner or later.
“The retention of referees isn’t great,” Cummins mentioned, referencing the statistics. “We do development sessions with young referees and talk to the parents. A lot of it comes from the top down.
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“They see what happens at our level. If there’s another option where you won’t get abused or criticised, even if it’s minimum wage at Maccas, you’ll take that job.”
The NRL has additionally launched a wave of latest measures to assist with officiating the sport since Cummins’ first sport as a referee in 2006.
He remained steadfast that know-how has performed nothing to enhance the sport and as a substitute practice the viewer’s give attention to refereeing errors.
“There’s such a focus on the things we do wrong. The media focus on those decisions, one or two a game, and everything a referee does positively gets missed,” he mentioned.
“There’s so much stuff we do to contribute to the game; hundreds of decisions, managing players, assessing different situations. You get one 50-50 call and everyone focuses on that and then it’s ‘refs in crisis’. Not sure how you fix that. That’s changed. I don’t want to be a part of that.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
