It happened in front of me and I think the 50 was from some choice words that Stringer said to him afterwards.
2 Likes
Yeah wait until after the bye when we are losing on the regular and you’ll see posts complaining about how the free kicks were in favour of the opposition each week.
1 Like
yep generally you only complain about the umpires when you lose.
In a normal cohort of people, this would probably be the case. But in Bomberblitz, let’s just say there’s a few outliers…
Yep, I watched it back a few times & there was only 1 whistle so Jake had every reason to believe it was for the mark. The ump didn’t blow the whistle again until just before he kicked which of course coincided with the crowd at fever pitch.
3 Likes
On the replay it looked like the ump indicated to Bonar that he had awarded the 50 before Stringer would have had a chance to argue the point.
3 Likes
Disgusting that the CEO is making a comment on this situation. Really immature of him to allow himself to make a comment on an individual player.
Should have said he isn’t an expert in umpiring and trusts the umps to make the right calls…
3 Likes
I disagree, should have said “stop cheating you cheating ■■■■”
12 Likes
I don’t think the AFL’s ex-Governance boss has that much self-awareness.
6 Likes
FTFY.
3 Likes
Apart from the obvious error in paying the free in the first place.
The most ridiculous part is the umpire didn’t even try to call the play back. Watching on tv you didn’t even realise it was a free.
Stringer even had a quick look to the ump immediately after the mark to be sure he was good to go. Unfortunately, the ump wasn’t in the middle, he was behind him, and did not blow the whistle a few more times to call the play back, as they should when someone clearly does not realise there is a free to the opposition.
8 Likes
This is the key point really. The ump should be aware that the player with his back to the umpire will likely not hear any whistle over the roar of 40,000+ people cheering, and give the benefit of the doubt.
Anyone else notice in the last where Jones I think had a hurried snap out of the pack just inside 50, it was clearly touched and you can hear an ump call touched play on and then another ump pays a mark to Wilkie who an Essendon player has wrapped up. Should have been a deep forward stoppage for us. Don’t know why the ump who called played on let the other ump pay the mark
2 Likes
Probably politics in the umpire cohort
Can you provide timestamps of when this happened?
Too many cooks
It really annoys me that there’s an umpire 20m from the play who, I assume, paid the mark, and another umpire way off the play paid the free.
Off the ball umpires should only pay off the ball frees, unless there’s a clear high free the nearby guy missed.
No. I had the AFL website open watching the stats while watching the game so impossible. The AFL website game timeline doesn’t report frees. You would literally have to rewatch the game and count every free.
The AFL used to offer a “Smart replay” that time stamped every free kick & score but I don’t think its available any more. Not sure why as it was a great way to find parts of the game you wanted to see again.