‘Once you start letting breaches go, the game can get out of hand’

KEITH PAGE WAS THE referee in charge of the 1969 grand final, the first of three grand finals he would control between 1969 and 1973. A controversial figure, Page’s career is profiled in depth by author Ian Heads in The Great Grand Final Heist.

​‘In my experience as a league journalist, I found Page a difficult man to pin down,’ Heads writes. ‘I can recall only occasional brief exchanges with him at the door of the match officials’ dressing-room.’
 
During his research for the book, Heads found one rare insight into Page’s makeup: a story by Frank Goss that appeared in the November 1970 issue of Rugby League World. ‘Page weighs his words carefully before he says anything,’ Goss told his readers. ‘[He is] a fairly quiet, even introspective man
 
At one point, Goss reminded Page that critics had branded him as ‘everything from short-tempered to arrogant’. ‘I’m determined,’ the referee replied. ‘If I had to sum it up in a word, that’s what I would say.’
 
Rugby league in Australia was a different game in 1969, not least in the way it was adjudicated by the men in white. Keith Page went on to comment on several subjects relating to refereeing, including the following:
 
The rules: ‘[They] are in the book and I try to play them as they are stated in the book. In a lot of cases, the interpretation of these rules is a matter of the referee’s personality. But I play them as I see them. Once you start letting breaches go, the game can get out of hand. For instance, you might let a little punch-up go; it might not mean very much at the time. But it could develop into a bigger punch-up.’
 
Crowds: ‘[I] never give them a thought. If your mind starts wondering about things other than the game then you can’t do your job properly. My thoughts are not concerned with what the crowd wants, but with adjudicating the game. The rules are in the book and I try to play them as they are stated. I can only hope that the public gets its entertainment from the standard of play, not from the standard of refereeing.’
 
Repeat offenders: ‘It’s so wrong for a player to do this because it is so unfair to his teammates. You must accept that a player is going to try to put it over you. But if he’s caught trying to do this, you at least expect to find him trying to vary his tactics next time.’
 
Criticism: ‘You read this criticism and you try to think to yourself where you have gone wrong. But, honestly, I can’t see what I’m doing wrong. All I am doing is playing by the rules.’
 
Praise: ‘If you go into refereeing expecting to get pats on the back then you are going to be very badly disappointed. You are told when you go into refereeing that you won’t get as much out of it as you put in.’
 
Improving the game: ‘I never give it a thought. That’s not my job. That’s up to the men who run the game. My job is to adjudicate.’

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