Rugby League: Why a flamboyant ref was demoted

By BILLY ADAMS

In the great refereeing pantheon, few can claim to have scaled the dizzy heights that Bill "Hollywood" Harrigan has.

League's No 1 official is better known than most of the players and more respected than the best of them.

He gets to referee just about all the big games. No one else gets a look in.

And Harrigan does it with style.

Not for him the short-strided grim persona of a lecturing schoolteacher.

On the field his swagger matches the most arrogant star, he adjudicates on the run.

All this hasn't been lost on advertisers and the media, and the burgeoning personality hasn't been slow to cash in. Ringing endorsements. Posing for calendars. A chat show darling.

This week, though, the referee everyone knows as Hollywood was sensationally axed by the NRL. And the question of why officials spat the whistle is now on everyone's lips.

According to the NRL, Harrigan was demoted because of his poor handling of last week's match between Newcastle and Parramatta.

But few believe them, and seasoned observers claim league management has finally had enough of his maverick style.

The now infamous clash in which Harrigan four times sent Parramatta players to the sin bin certainly sparked the fallout.

Coaches are said to have become increasingly concerned that the star referee competes with the players for attention on the field. And last week's controversial performance was seen an example of the ego clouding the judgment.

Australians have never been keen on the heads of their sporting elite swelling too much and, despite the denials of the NRL, exasperated officials are said to have acted primarily to bring their celebrity official back into line.

Curiously, the final straw is said to have been a public admission by Harrigan on a television show last weekend that he had been approached to become a rugby union referee. Even worse, he refused to rule out a switch.

Tender from the continuing defections of star players to union, NRL board members were incensed. Demotion from this weekend's round of matches seemed the only option.

"He was supposed to be defending his rulings in the Parramatta game, yet spent the time talking about refereeing international rugby union matches," one miffed director told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill clearly couldn't resist the temptation to fuel the rival code fires.

A move like that, he said, would be incredibly difficult because "a referee's job in rugby league is manifestly easier than it is in rugby union. We would have to send him to an advanced management school."

Meanwhile, leading rugby league commentator Roy Masters had no doubts of the NRL's motives: "Loyalty may be the code's strongest asset, but big-headedness is its greatest crime."

The wisdom of the decision appears to be on shaky ground.

Players and former players have rallied round their fallen ref, scrambling over each other to pledge support.

Former test forward Rex Mossop saved the most withering criticism for a lunch, where members of the NRL hierarchy were among the 400 guests.

"I'm appalled by it because it weakens rugby league," boomed Mossop.

"I don't have a brief for Harrigan. I happen to like him as a human being, but he's completely been given the arse by the NRL, and I resent it."

With support like that, "Hollywood" can be confident of returning to the fold, head held high.

And who can bet he won't do so with more fanfare and bravado than ever before.