Does anyone know why over the last couple of seasons, the touch judges often come about 10 yards onto the field, and telling the players to play the ball, instead of stopping on the touch line? Isn’t that the refs job?
I was thinking just the same watching last nights game. After about 3 mins the touchy comes on and shouts at the players involved in the tackle what appeared to me to be " Your shite" before running off again. It happened again with just a few minutes of the game left.
I think the theory is that with the refs and touch judges miked up and able to hear each other these days that it makes sense for the touch judges to come in when the ball goes within say ten metres of either touch line. That means the tacklers don't have the excuse of not being able to hear the ref call "held!", "move!" or whatever. Just the officials working together really like with forward passes and offside.
Though I must admit, I prefer the above explanation that the touch judge just wants to come on and tell the players what he thinks of them!
It’s about an appearance fee