The tribunal guidelines must have changed (or been completely ignored, or the Jetta incident was regarded as bringing the game into disrepute.) These days staging is a fixed financial sanction; players can’t be suspended for it.
IMO the logic in the Staging section of the Tribunal Guidelines is flawed though.
They say they don’t like staging because it can influence umpiring… however other things that might influence umpiring (eg players appealing for insufficient intent, sticking their arms up appealing for htb, throwing their arms out to appeal for htm) apparently aren’t a problem. It seems the AFL is acknowledging that the umps can be sucked in by staging, but they’re immune to these other appeals.
However if the “staging” (exaggerating contact) is May putting his hand over his head, then that happened after the supposed impact. If it’s the hand over his head that influences the umpire, then the ump isn’t paying what he saw, he’s paying what he assumed must have happened: “May’s hand is over his head: his head must have hit the turf.” Umps paying what they assume happened instead of what they actually see happen is a big problem.
Edit: The thing is the tackle doesn’t need to involve high contact for it to be considered dangerous. The ump can give a free for a dangerous tackle even without high contact, which means (if the ump is doing his job) players don’t need to stage to get the free kick.
I don’t have a problem with the ball carrier trying to sneak a few meters to improve the angle. I have an issue with the rules saying that doing so isn’t play on, the ump not lining them up correctly to begin with, and the ump focusing so much on the man on the mark that they are inevitably late in calling play on when the ball player actually does. And on the odd occasion when the do actually follow the rules and line the player up correctly (eg Lav on the weekend,) they don’t do it consistently.
Jetta may have only received a fine for staging. But was the first one caught. Was also done for striking grimes in the same match and that was why he was suspended. Poor memory from my account.
Watched Joey on the weekend meander about 10 m of his line in the back pocket with the guy on the mark going ballistic at the ump, of course it was on his preferred left side too. He took so much ■■■■ that the Ump eventually called play on.
The whole concept of playing on from outside the boundary is flawed.
Any step to the side, under current “rules”, should be play on. So what happened to Duursma, if applied all the time, would mean every time a player has a kick starting initially outside the boundary, it must go over the mark, or it’s a throw in.
But…IMO it’s nonsense to call play on outside the boundary and so a throw in. You literally can’t play on until the bsll is in play. The only logical interpretation must be that whenever the player taking the kick starts outside the boundary, the kick (or HB) must go over the mark. Otherwise bring it back until they do.
“I’m screwing your mob over today, and there’s nothing you can do about it, because we are untouchable. Oh, and your fixture is soft. And you’re drug cheats. And go ahead and tell everyone about this conversation if you want, because nobody will believe you.”
In the VFLW game we actually had the reverse scenario: a Cat started next to our point post and ran a long way parallel to the line before kicking in. The boundary ump called out-of-bounds, but the field ump ultimately over-ruled her and gave the Cat another chance.
There’s a bit of a grey area as to how not-quite-straight you can run before disposing. In this particular case, it wasn’t grey; the field ump definitely got it wrong, as the player runs along the boundary before taking a sharp left to step over the line and kick.
Doubly insulting as the boundary ump was watching from the point post and had the perfect view.
Examples of legal moving off the line outside the boundary line: P(layer) is behind the M(ark), and may move sideways as long as they only move in “one direction”. Hopefully you don’t have “a natural arc”.
Note in this second scenario, if the fence is quite close to the boundary, the ump might let you start further up the boundary line so you have a chance of not getting your kick smothered.
There’s was this one not long ago, where #45 handballs to Cameron from outside the boundary. They called play on.
Cameron received it outside the Monday then kicks the goal.
