@robmur13 - this better be good - you’ve been ‘replying’ for 15 minutes now…
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Deliberate rule, ridiculous. Get rid of it, they only pay it sometimes. Shouldn’t have a rule that relies on umpires mind reading capabilities. ■■■■ it off
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He’s waiting on the score review.
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Adding more umpires may add more eyes/viewpoints but it’s yet to be shown that the introduction of additional inconsistent opinions improves the game.
In other words, we’re gonna end up with 6 field umps, one in each pocket and wing.
I think Personal Umpires is the way to go. Each player has one. If there is a discrepancy, the two opposing umpires get to fight it out.
To the death.
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Score review, ■■■■ it off or put in better technology. Just review silently for howlers and take out the theatrics of the current system. It’s an embarrassment. Makes us look like hillbillies
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It was an awesome win against the Weagles. Essendon were the superior side all night and deserved their win despite some very contentious decisions by the umpires. Weagles, 33 freekicks, Essendon 17, yet for most of the game Essendon was first to the ball.
Now consider this. There were four field umpires umpiring - three were from WA and one from SA. Where were the Victorian umpires? More about that to follow.
Three shockers, McKernan easily marks 30 metres out , play on. Where was the controlling umpire? Brown gets clobbered going for a mark near the behind post in the 1st. quarter. Is slung around the neck and almost heaved into the fence. All clear, a behind. Ridiculous decision. Hurley on the half back flank is grabbed as he kicks the ball. The ball travels 50 metres, bounces a number of times and goes out. Free kick to the Eagles for deliberately kicking the ball out. Again, ridiculous decision.
I’ve been involved in football for 62 years, as a player, field umpire and chairman of the local tribunal over that period of time. I think I have a broad knowledge and understanding of the game, but I’m totally confused by the endless, poor umpiring decisions I see week after week. I watch not only Essendon games as a passionate supporter, but many other games during the course of the weekend.
I don’t know whether the field umpires are poorly coached, or the AFL insists on the way the game should be played, or that the umpires are just too incompetent and lack football nous, or a combination of all three. In many ways the umpires are the cause of the congestion that is now an unwanted feature of the game.
There are moves to change the laws of the game again to rid the game of the continual congestion, low scoring, endless ball ups and insipid umpiring. I’m against many of the possible changes to the laws of the game, save for a few.
To improve the game as a spectacle:
- Players often thump and bash one another even before the ball is bounced. Pay a free kick against any one of the perpetrators and keep paying frees EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS The players will soon catch on.
- Pay the first, obvious free kick and don’t allow congested packs to form.
- Pay the obvious free kicks, particularly when players jump into a player’s back who is trying to make the play. That ISN’T HOLDING THE BALL, IT IS THE BACK…
- If there is a ball up required, a 20 metre circle at the point where the ball up occurs and allowing only four players to contest the ball.
- Only 6x2 players in the centre square at the start of each quarter and to start the game after a goal is scored.
- Eliminate the so called bias that umpires have for interstate home teams. Three field umpires - one from the home state, one from the visiting teams state and one from a non participating state. For two local teams playing each other, i.e. Essendon v Collingwood, three non-Victorian umpires. Cricket, tennis, rugby, soccer, in fact any sport played at the highest level have “unbiased” umpire/referees. Thursday night was a classic example of biased, home team umpiring.
- Ensure an Umpires’ Observer, appointed by the AFL, be in attendance at every AFL game, and write a report on each umpires’ performance.
- Drop umpires who consistently perform poorly.
- Consider whether the speed of the game now requires four field umpires per game. Not in favour of this as the more umpires there are on the ground the more likely there will be inconsistency in the their decision making. Remember, the game has gone from one to two to three and during the bye rounds, four. Has it improved the game? I don’t think it has at all.
Enough is enough. My drift is that the umpires have a lot to do with the current state of this wonderful game.
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fark me!
The best part of the win was that the playing group silenced the crowd so that the umpires couldn’t rely on their “noise off affirmation” and their blatant corruption was laid out bare for all too see.
Love the game, hate the league.
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And imagine what the score could have been with even half reasonable umpiring
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10m protected area is clear cut though. It’s only a problem because players aren’t used to it.
Last year people were claiming nominating a ruckman was over complicated. One player on each team putting up his hand.
It’s not rocket science. Players eventually worked it out. It’s a non issue now.
It should be clear cut but like everything its still up to the umpires interpretation. After being red hot on our guys about half way through the second qtr we took a mark about 50M out from the WC goal. A WC player clearly runs right behind the player about to kick within say 6-8m. Instead of paying the 50, the umpire twice tells the player to move out - in complete contrast to the way our players were treated.
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It’s a sum of many parts and not just the umps of course.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an overlooked, obscure rule from the 1870’s still floating in the laws of the game somewhere. Something like kicking an opponent is legal if a gentleman player’s moustache is unwaxed and playing without his cricket cap. That’s how incompetent the rules committee have been the past few decades, rather than cutting out some rules, they keep adding more. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s perhaps overlap and contradictory rules in there too if you looked hard enough. Their attitude is that this is not so much a sport but a brand, Gil himself often refers to it as an “industry”.
Forming the Rules Committee was one of the worst and dumbest things the AwFuL ever did.
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he’s done it to death??
amirte
Agree, Goddard said that if AFL leave rules the same, coaches and players will make the game evolve.
Ruck circle that reduce injury well thats probably been the only positive rule change in the last 20 years.
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What I’ve noticed is, that the umpires never pay a 50m for ‘encroaching in the protected area’ when a mark is taken inside the 50m arch.
For example, if a player marks the ball close to the behind post, he immediately has 3 or 4 opposition players in his face waving their arms around and blocking his path to play on. The umps never give 50m.
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Control freak Bartlett used to argue that it was coaches and sports science in general which was ruining the game. This was a guy who couldn’t be removed from the rules committee soon enough.
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l have made the same point a few times, over the years. Instead the game has been bastardized to an extent. Leave it alone, let it evolve, naturally.
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Unless its Smack early in the game 
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