Hull KR head coach Willie Peters has admonished referees and called on the RFL to help solve the current gamesmanship issue in Super League.
It was a debate that was ignited in Round 25 after several yellow cards were shown off the back of a player staying down following contact, triggering the video referee to intervene and advise the on-field referee to sin bin a player.
With how physical rugby league is and the ongoing legal disputes surrounding head injuries, it’s a gauntlet that the game must somehow navigate but Hull KR head coach Willie Peters has argued that the answer must come from the RFL.
He saw prop Jai Whitbread sin binned and then banned for a high shot on Wigan’s Tyler Dupree, one of the yellow cards across Round 25 to follow an in-depth video referee check.
Speaking to the media before his side’s Super League clash with Leigh, Peters argued: “You could slow mo most tackles, and then a lot of tackles are gonna be towards the head. So if players stay down, and you watch that in slow motion, then more often than not, it’s gonna be deemed as a high tackle.
“It’s above the players, it’s above the coaches, it’s the RFL that needs to look at it.”
After the loss on Friday night, Peters had his say on players staying down, even suggesting that it was being coached but he’s now clarified that it’s not a player issue, but instead something that falls at the feet of the RFL.
He explained: “I’ve obviously said a bit about players staying down and there are certain players staying down and you tend to know the players that do consistently stay down and the ones that don’t but again, it’s above that.
“It’s a decision that needs to be made by the RFL about what direction that we’re going to go in and then the official rule will ref the game off the back of that.”
Gamesmanship ‘taking away what the game is about’, claims Peters
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With more and more sin bins and subsequent bans, fans, pundits and players have bemoaned the current state of the game with one of those being recent Wakefield Trinity signing Jake Trueman.
He had taken to social media to argue that the sport was in “serious danger” and that it was “hard to watch” and it seems that Willie Peters is of a similar opinion.
“With players spending time on the floor and then having a look at the video ref and all that sort of stuff of these tackles, it takes away what the game’s about,” argued the KR coach.
“The game should be free-flowing. Everyone wants a nice, fast game and they want a physical game as well and I just think at the times there, we’re slowing the game down and looking at things that the referees can’t see.
“I’m not blaming referees one bit here. They’re just doing their job. I think it’s something that needs to be made, a decision needs to be made above what direction we want to go and then everyone’s clear on it.
“You’re going to have that accidental contact to the head. It’s something that we just need to keep looking at. It’s not the player’s fault, it’s not the referees’ fault, it’s just something that we need to get right as a game.”
Has the video referee actually helped Super League referees?
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The 2025 Super League campaign is the first in which there is a video referee at every game and that fact has created what is arguably an ‘overreach’ on the half of the video ref, with on-field decisions scrutinised at depth.
That’s been key in this recent issue of gamesmanship and players potentially milking penalties with the player safe in the knowledge that if they stay down long enough then the video referee will inevitably take a look.
That must change according to Willie Peters who has backed the referees and their understanding of the game, rather than undermining their decisions.
“As I said, my opinion on it is that referees have got a good understanding of a tackle and what a tackle should look like, what an illegal tackle looks like, what it doesn’t look like and a lot of the time they can make a decision live.
“We’ve got this tool (video referee) that we go back to and if we’re going to use that, do you use it every tackle? Then you’re looking at it and you’ll be finding penalties and reasons on most tackles and the answer is no.
“I think referees have got a good understanding of the sort of feel of games, or when something’s legal and something’s illegal, and when there are some accidents in games that happen, and let the referees penalise it.”
On his solution, put the incident on report, he argued: “Players, naturally, if it doesn’t get caught or seen, they’re going to stay down. And then, is it, you know, 10 minutes in the bin? A lot of them aren’t, no. Is it a penalty? Absolutely. Should it be put on report? Yeah, possibly have a look at it later on.”
