LESS PRESSURE ON REFS WITH NO FANS
THE days of one-eyed fans yelling “get ‘em onside!” are over and Cowboys coach Paul Green reckons the NRL’s stadium lockout will ease the strain of home-town crowds influencing referees.
The Cowboys and Bulldogs will become the first teams to play in an empty stadium following the NRL’s coronavirus crowd ban when they clash at ANZ Stadium tonigh.
It will be a bizarre feeling for the players when they run out to silence at the 83,500seat Olympics venue.
But it’s something they will have to get used to, with the possibility the entire NRL season could be played without any fans in the stands.
Green said the Cowboys hadn’t discussed the crowd absence in depth, but admitted it was one less distraction for the players and officials.
“It will be different and a little bit weird,” he said.
“(But) it’s one less distraction which can sometimes be a good thing.
“Sometimes you get the feeling some refs can be a little bit swayed by home crowds at different times, particularly at some of those smaller grounds or a big stadium that’s full.
“That won’t be the case for us. It might be easier for the refs to at least ref.
“For our guys it will hopefully make it easier to concentrate because you won’t have the distraction of crowd and noise.
“No one really knows until we go through it. We’re getting our heads around it.”
Aside from welcoming the return of Test forward Josh McGuire from suspension, Green has stayed loyal to the Cowboys team that was disappointing in a 28-21 loss to the Broncos last Friday night in Townsville.
The Cowboys missed 44 tackles against the Broncos.
“I think that number can be a little bit deceiving, we missed some poor tackles but they were in chunks of the game,” Green said. “When we were bad we were really bad.
“It’s not just individual tackling. It’s a little bit of concentration and staying in the moment.” Travis Meyn