There is a solution. Like all the best ideas, this will seem stupid at first. They also laughed at Newton (Isaac, not Clint) and imprisoned Galileo.
The idea is to merge the operations of the Bunker with the commentary booth so that they are always in agreement. Yes, it sounds more bonkers than Bunker. But as countries like North Korea and the United States of America have discovered, perfection need not be a fact, only a shared consensus. If perception is reality, then we don’t need to fix reality. We only need to fix perception.
The Bunker has turned into quicksand.Credit: Simon Letch
We now have two layers of mediation between the game and the viewer: Bunker and Booth. The Bunker makes a mistake, and the Booth shouts at it. We fans shout at the TV, shout at the Booth shouting at the Bunker. Meanwhile the game goes on, or, in the case of Bunker decisions, doesn’t.
The solution is to go full DOGE, send the officials home, make the expert commentators – Joey, Billy, Kevvie, Brandy, Blocker, Mick Ennis, every man and his dog – the adjudicators.
I’m among the majority of NRL fans who agree with the commentators over the Bunker officials 99 per cent of the time. Is this because they are right? Because they have played thousands of NRL games? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn’t really matter.
Our reality is guided by the voices we are hearing. The Booth are not bound by codes of conduct, not punished for bringing the game into disrepute for speaking the truth, as a coach would be if they said the exact same thing. They come across as the voices of honesty. So simply make them the video adjudicators. We would be hearing that the Bunker would be correct 100 per cent of the time. Isn’t that the perfection the game is turning itself inside-out chasing?
I hear the objections. There are conflicts of interest. Gus Gould or other commentators doubling as club officials would, unfortunately, have their Bunker functions permanently disabled. Joey couldn’t do Knights games. Billy couldn’t do Storm. At Origin time, the commentators would have to be New Zealanders or other neutral parties, potentially English.
Get the commentators in the Bunker to solve its problems.Credit: NRL Imagery
The commentators might disagree with each other. In that case, always have three of them and settle the matter by a democratic vote. It contradicts our overall North Korean ethos, but just get the game out of its quicksand and stop talking about decisions.
The Booth would make mistakes, of course, but think of how much easier life would be if we fans are just shouting at the TV instead of listening to other people who are on the TV shouting at their TVs.
On-field officials might object to having Joey in their hearing aid: ‘Come on, stop looking for reasons to say no try, just get on with the game.’ Professional sticklers might object to having decisions guided not by linear precision but by the desire to entertain. Well, tough. It’s only a game, not putting a man on the moon. And we’ve proven that we can put a man on the moon; we just can’t prove whether a decoy runner deprived a defender of the opportunity to stop a try.
And if we’re honest, what referee would not be flattered by an Immortal telling them they’d got a decision right? What referee would not blushingly defer to a voice from the heavens telling them they’d done their best but would now be respectfully overturned?
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Like all insane ideas, it sounds better the more you repeat it. I wasn’t sure if this was a serious proposal, but now I’m convinced. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, hasn’t the NRL already had its turn? Its well-intentioned pursuit of perfection has created a geometric asymptote that might go on, like the Immortals, forever: the nearer the officiating gets to perfection, the more it drives fans, players, coaches and commentators to the brink.
Forget perfection. Think of every man and his dog.
