I love that the entire football industry in chorus have protested the decisions if for no other reason than it represents such a huge disconnect between the fans and players and the umpires in the way the game is/should be officiated. The fact that Ryan, of his own volition, put himself up and suggested the decisions were all correct has exposed that disconnect and the AFL now have to confront the situation. Had Ryan not said anything they could’ve just brushed it all and moved on. But they can’t ignore it now.
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puts the Essendon Boooogate into perspective (if it needed it at all to start with)
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Interestingly, if they hadn’t have gone so hard then it probably wouldn’t have come to this.
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Well their problem now is that any htb that is called on a player who evades a tackle, runs a long way and gets tackled to the ground and THEN gets out a dubious handball will be demonstrably wrong. As will any high contact where the tackle first brushes the top of the shoulder… or where a player throws the ball but at least swings at it. By being highly specific about these decisions being on the ‘correct’ side of the line, they’ve now confirmed the line to be in a place where no one in the industry thinks it belongs.
This weekend is gonna be interesting!
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As far as I’m concerned, there are almost no circumstances where a holding the ball can be paid from now on.
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I said earlier - need to umpire the rules with commonsense and in the spirit of the game.
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Still more than happy to front up at the President’s lunch though. Pity he didn’t eat the rabbit.
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Agree with that. Umpiring is hard - really hard. I did it once when i played footy but was injured. I used to play a grade ammos but had a shoulder ac injury. I got asked to come along to help strap up ankles for the twos, so I get there to hear the ump had some urgent family tragedy or something so there was no umpire. The game was to be cancelled. I got asked and reluctantly agreed to umpire with zero experience. Man was it tough!
So I have sympathy. I just think their line after Thursday could have been that many of those were in the grey area and agree they could have gone either way. Perhaps that while technically you could argue some and possibly all of them were correct, in the spirit of the laws they could some or all have been paid the other way, and that’s the nature of our game. Then there’d have been no defiant line in the sand setting of rule interpretations which they have now done - I reckon to their detriment. It’s a petard with which they now may easily be hoist!
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excellent post
NRL come out after the weekend and said “Look we got a few decisions wrong in the Storm Warriors games and we’ll address that going forward”
NBA officials went in at half time and admitted to Houston they missed three or four calls on them in the first half.
AFL umpires have never made a mistake and every call they’ve ever made has been 100% correct and will never get any decisions wrong.
That’s what annoys me. If you’re wrong, just say you’re wrong. That Shaun Ryan, should feel embarrassed that he’s doubling down on the mistakes. If he’d come out and said, “out of the five, I think two were right and the other couple were at best 50-50” or something like that I could swallow it. but just backing yourself in no matter what is just ridiculous.
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It certainly generated some discussion. Otherwise it would have received about a paragraph 6 pages deep in the sports section.
Ryan’s interview with Whateley now appears to be more of a protest against the establishment rather than justification of game day decisions. The intense media focus has fleshed this issue out, where umpires are clearly isolated and feel that the whole world is against them. Gil’s comments post match further inflamed the situation.
Boo-gate has had it’s effect, putting the focus on the poor decisions during the match and moving beyond the initial knew jerk reaction from Barratt, Whateley and co.
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Caro is Satan.
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Shows that booing during Pendlebury’s speech had a desirable effect even though the fans were lambasted for it. If the booing had stopped when the umpires left the ground there would have been no controversy. Ridiculous that it took booing SP’s speech for the issue of incompetent umpiring to be addressed.
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Well done Whateley! You have shown yourself to be an absolutely irrelevant flog of a commentator.
He has let his bias guide him instead of objective reporting.
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The issue has moved beyond incompetent umpiring and is now firmly centred around the disconnect between how the rules are interpreted and applied and what the broader football community (players, coaches, commentators, supporters, basically every stakeholder that isn’t in the umpiring dept) are expecting.
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I’ve lost track of developments over the last two days.
Where are we at?
Picking up bits and pieces, is it that :
The AFL haven’t ticked off the Anzac Day decisions so Ryan went on radio of his own volition? With or without the Umpiring Department permission?
Have the AFL actually said anything publicly since Ryan went to air, or is this all just that dimwit McClure running with supposition on a feud between them and trying to get support for the umpires?
The AFL’s umpiring dept did the review, it almost certainly would’ve been ticked off by Steve Hocking. However head office refused to comment publicly in support of the Umps in spite of an agreement to do so and corroborating evidence of correct adjudication (cough bullshit cough). Ryan as the most senior umpire in the game put himself up to defend the umpires position specific to the game but seemingly also more broadly.
Mclure and a few others have now since run with the rift between Umps and AFL over the lack of support.
All the while the broader football commentariat has continued to talk about the disconnect that clearly now exists between the football public and industry and the way the rules are administered.
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Right. Thanks.
I found Dil’s comments - which almost seemed to agree with Bomber fans being rightly ■■■■■■ off - on radio very interesting.
Now it seems that Wilson - who was hand fed info from Dil during the Saga and Melbourne tanking - is turning against him.
And then there was the report about him leaving to head up Channel 7.
Empire crumbling, rats deserting?
And fwiw, I think full time umpires is a red herring. The issue is with the instructions and interpretation manipulation by the AFL.
A rank amateur with no umpiring experience knows that the Crisp one was dropping the ball every time in the spirit of the game. I’d even argue that instinctive decisions would be more genuine if umps weren’t overthinking things 40 hours per week. And what is “full time” for an AFL ump anyway!? Watch countless hours of rules footage every single day? Stupid.
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