{"id":123373,"date":"2021-09-03T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=123373"},"modified":"2021-09-03T05:56:20","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T05:56:20","slug":"retiring-ref-reveals-truth-about-smith-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=123373","title":{"rendered":"Retiring ref reveals truth about Smith power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retiring NRL referee Matt Cecchin has revealed what Melbourne great Cameron Smith<\/a> was like to officiate as a player.<\/p>\n

Smith, who retired at the end of last season, often came under scrutiny by pundits for his influence on the match officials<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The suggestion that his influence went too far is something Smith says makes him laugh, famously revealing in 2019: "I find it funny that fans and coaches and some parts of the media truly believe that I can influence referees."<\/p>\n

As Cecchin gets set to hang up the whistle after his final game tomorrow night – the Rabbitohs' clash with the Dragons<\/a> – he opened up on his relationship with the three-time premiership Storm great.<\/p>\n

The veteran official with more than 350 NRL games of experience claims what separated Smith from other players was the former Melbourne captain's ability to engage in on-field conversations without being "nasty."<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

"He (Smith) is certainly one of the most intelligent players I've ever refereed," Cecchin told SEN radio.<\/p>\n

"The thing with Cameron \u2013 he did get a lot of air time with referees \u2013 but he did it in a way that he'd come and talk to you on the field and you'd feel like pausing the game, ordering a couple of coffees or a couple of beers to have a chat about it.<\/p>\n

"He was really engaging, not in a nasty, 'You stuffed that up' way, but he would say, 'Cech, I agree with that penalty, but can you keep an eye on this guy? He always seems to get caught in there and we're not really locking it in.'<\/p>\n

"Your mind starts to go, 'Maybe he's right?', he was very, very, engaging and very clever with how he did things.<\/p>\n

"Off the field, you'd speak to him about the game, he just knew it in such complexity, it was incredible."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retiring NRL referee Matt Cecchin has revealed what Melbourne great Cameron Smith was like to officiate as a player. Smith, who retired at the end […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123373"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123375,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123373\/revisions\/123375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}