Actually, yes it is. Am I right in thinking you have never actually been to a game in Perth? Every chance they get the crowd calls for a free kick for the Eagles no matter how trivial, and boo whenever one is given the other way, no matter how justified it was.
I and other WA BBers have commented about this before. That sort of behaviour is just not seen in Victoria, where the crowd is not composed of 99% of supporters for the same club. In WA they get caught up in a feedback loop with no self-censorship or restraint from opposition supporters.
And the statistics show the maggots appear only too happy to oblige.
What you’re saying is the umpires are actually conspiring to cheat.
Umps should be assessing every decision on its merits, getting an associate booed off on a stretcher shouldn’t have any bearing on the decision making.
If it is, they’re conspiring to cheat.
I don’t believe it’s a conscious thing, they don’t consciously cheat. But it’s human nature to have a level of cognitive bias in decision making. We’re on there rough side of that and it’s in part a consequence of the behaviour of the supporters.
the one big problem with our own beautiful game is the umpiring.
it’s only because aussie rules is generally a high scoring affair that the better sides normally win.
too many technical free kicks. I’d like the rules simplified and what was technically given away as a free kick often just good contact play - negating is ok.
For those of you who don’t believe in conspiracy theories. go back to 2013. After Round 17 Essendon are sitting 2 on the ladder, a remarkable coaching and playing performance considering all the media pressure around the club and Hird. At that stage they had won six or seven on the trot.
AwFuL decides they don’t want Essendon in the finals so send Finnis (CEO of Player Association but really a Demitriou sycophant) to speak to the Players and he tells them they won’t be playing in the Finals.
Just to add fuel to the fire consider the umpiring in the next three rounds.
Details below supplied but a Blitzer in April last year but sorry I didn’t record whom.
“Back in the early days of the saga, in 2013 when Essendon was flying and this was a huge problem for the AFL. We had a game where we got just 3 frees (not counting OOB on the full) and lost badly (against Hawthorn I think). Next week we got a similar free kick count and our bubble burst.” _I didn’t remember that particularly well so i went back and looked at the statistics - it was round 18-20, 2013. We played Hawthorn, Collingwood and West Coast, and in those three games we received 8, 10, and 9 free kicks, respectively. That struck me as low so i went back and got the free kick statistics for every regular season game in 2013 and the statistics are pretty interesting. _ The average frees paid to each team per game in 2013 was 18.1, with a standard deviation of 5.0. Using a normal distribution, the probability of getting 8 or fewer free kicks in any one game in 2013 (as we did in round 18) was 2.3%, 9 or fewer (as per round 20) was 3.6%, and 10 or fewer (as per round 19) was 5.4%. The probability of our round 18-20 free kick count occurring, speaking statistically, was (2.3% * 3.6% * 5.4%) = 0.004%, or about 1 in 23,000. Unsurprisingly, it was the worst 3-week free kick run any team had in the league throughout season 2013.
You think other teams’ supporters don’t do that too? Essendon crowds, on the whole, are one of the most polite crowds known to man. But after some of the most blatant prejudicial decisions, or non decisions over the last few weeks, even a quokka would get agro. I wish our crowds would get fired up more often.
If a player gathers the ball and then it “comes out in the tackle”, the tackling player should be allowed to follow through with said tackle and take them to ground. Too many times do players immediately ‘release’ the ball knowing they won’t be penalised, then, get rewarded because the tackler was ‘holding the man’. WTF. It grinds my gears.
Try telling that to the umpires. They’d refute it unreservedly. Which means we are left with umpires making biased decisions against EFC for reasons unknown.