Can confirm this from my experience.
Playing in a country league I was punched in the head in front of an umpire who saw it, about 80m off the ball.
Me: did you see that?
Umpire: yes. You deserved it.
(Can confirm, my younger self
probably deserved it)
That all started back in the early '80s with Peter Cameron, who the heirarchy used to get to umpire Essendon-Hawthorn games in particular.
In those days, World of Sport had a session where a maggot would come in each week and explain controversial decisions. Most of the time they would get an easy one to show how they were right, and would admit the one they got wrong could have went either way, or rarely they would admit a mistake.
Cameron was asked to explain a bad mistake and just laughed it off. One of the ex-players on the panel pulled him into line, saying that it was no laughing matter - players’ and coaches’ careers could be affected by bad calls like. For optics, he got a week’s rest, but the VFL/AFL have been protecting them tightly ever since.
That’d be me, allowing it.
I remember a batsman complaining he was given a send-off, and I just told him he had to expect it, having sledged their bowlers.
And a batsman who’d claimed a close-in catch bounced, while I was obscured by the fieldsman. Cop it, sunshine.
I still think goal and boundary umpires should be helping the field umpires if they are in better positions.
Agree. Maybe not in subjective interpretation type rules, but simply - did it hit the ground type issues.
Yeah the field umpire can seek advise.
Agree with your arguments against extending video review too much, but at least in this specific case, before the match resumed from the centre bounce, the video review should have informed the umpire that it wasn’t a mark and play should have resumed with a ball-up at where the “mark” was supposedly taken.
I mean, the AFL claim that all goals and points are reviewed after they occur, so to me this is what should have happened in this case.
Standard practice for Nankervis. Absolute cheat who never gets picked up for it.
Want that him who belly flopped on top of Zaka and dislocated his clavicle clean off the sternum?
I think Richmond in general takes the view that if the opposition player is taking that mark, then the might as well infringe (chop the arms or whatever). If the ump pays the free, nothing lost as the player would have marked it anyway. But if the ump doesn’t pay it, that’s a win for them.
Tigers are always bottom of the frees for/ against table for a reason
I think you’re referring to 'What’s your decision". Hilarious.
Classic
Hilarious, but yet another reason umps shouldn’t be using players’ names (or nicknames) on field.
Bush league umps
Yep
Was watching that at the time. Absolute disgrace of decision. Especially when the game was on the line. Of course O’Halloran wasn’t going to move when it’s his teammates name getting called.
True enough. But when a GF hinges on a missed call like that grounded mark, what happens? Or what should ideally happen?
I posted somwhere here after Dreamtime we shouldn’t go down the VAR road given the speed and interpretation difficulties of AFL umpiring.
But a rank and unambiguous wrong call at the death will affect a key outcome like a GF result soon enough, if not already. What if Durham was ruled to have infringed Rioli when he marked, but was never there? How do you adjudicate certain incidents in certain crucial matches in close moments is my question.
Do we deploy a VAR version for finals? Or for every game and their last quarter?
Tech is catching up but we cannot let our game slow down too much for the sake of that. Otherwise its a different game suddenly.
I dont know the answer right now apart from “play on”.
The Richmond bloke is a cheat. He knew he dropped the mark, and he just cheated. Much worse than sandpaper. And he should go straight to the tribunal.
I refer you to the 1968 GF in which a bad maggot’s call against us gave FCFC the flag
