Totally agree with you, however the referee's are their own worst enemy. How many times do you see a player gobbing off at a ref and he doesn't book them, when he's well within his right to? (I believe the rules allow them to book them for any sort of dissent?). I also realise we probably wouldn't be in the Premier League because Harry Arter would've got sent off every other gameBeen watching quite a bit of both codes of rugby lately. Why can't we get referees like they do. Stand no nonsense or dissent, announce your decision via a mike, then get it checked (generally quickly) if there is a tiny bit of doubt. Saw a quite diminutive ref give a rollocking to a 20 odd stone player. The player accepted it and behaved without even a **** you in reply!
As soon as players start getting sent off and banned for this, with a zero tolerance policy of only the captain can talk to the ref unless the ref chooses to speak to the player in question, nothing will change.