I must be finally mellowing with age, as after four rounds of the competition, I’m really enjoying the footy and most of the annoying things about the game aren’t getting to me like they once did.

I seem to be tolerating the Fox commentary team, including Andrew Voss and Michael Ennis, the Dragons only have themselves to blame for their current predicament, and even the referees and the bunker hasn’t bugged me greatly so far. Strange days indeed!

I did say most things though, and the one thing that remains really annoying, and a blight on the game, is the way that players openly challenge nearly every refereeing decision, and run at the referee with their arms and jaws flapping at every opportunity.

Now I know from personal experience that refereeing isn’t an easy gig at the best of times, but having multiple players in the referee’s face seemingly every time they make a decision that someone doesn’t like is not only a bad look for the game, but unnecessarily increases the pressure that the whistle blowers are under.

It seems that every club these days has their own designated band of whingers these days. There are far too many to name here, but the likes of Parramatta’s Mitch Moses and Clint Gutherson are perfect examples of players who have elevated whingeing to an artform.

If the distance they both ran to get in front of the referee every time a decision doesn’t go Parramatta’s way was included in their yardage stats, they’d each easily be up over 350 metres every week.

If their arm flapping was included in the VB hard earned index they’d be off the scale, and 110% would indeed become the new 100%.

Sure, the GOAT Cameron Smith spent almost as much time refereeing the games he played in as running the football, but he did it subtly, without much fanfare, and consistently got away with it without either making a spectacle of himself or upsetting the referees.

To be honest, I think the referees were happy to have his input.

Once upon a time referees were treated with respect, and their decisions were rarely questioned by the rank and file. A captain might have quietly asked for clarification of a decision now and then, but the whistle blowers certainly weren’t assailed by half a dozen players every time they made a decision.

If a player did run at a referee and got in his face, he and his team were likely to regret it.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

So how did we get to this?

Well, I blame both the increasing over-familiarity between referees and players and the captain’s challenge.

These days the referee spends so much time calling players by their first name, letting them know they’re offside, in front of the kicker, the scrum’s over, their hair’s messed up, and what to do and where to stand at almost every break-down, that the players must think that the guy with the whistle is just another part of their coaching staff rather than the game’s adjudicator.

I’d be happier if the referees just adjudicated the game, not coach the players, and if a team believes that the referee has made an error, the captain, and only the captain, should be permitted to respectfully challenge the decision, providing they have any challenges left.

If not, get on with the game or suffer the consequences. Any other player hassling the referee or mouthing off their dissatisfaction should be penalised.

Is it just me or does anyone else find this behaviour intolerable?