Umpiring boss Luke Ball was asked about the study in which all umpiring was statistically reviewed in all games over the last few years and has stated that pretty much all were the correct call. “We’ve seen that the stats appear to show glaring biases all over the place but under our current interpretation of the rules it does appear that every decision ever made over the last few years was correct, give or take. Particularly those that were given in Essendon games.”
When asked about his odd and potentially biased singling out of Essendon games he further added, “Well, we can’t say that we get everything right 100% of the time (laughs). I mean, we’re only human. But yeah, we get all of the Essendon ones right.”
After this comment Ball said he had left something in his car and awkwardly left the room. The interview was presumed over some time after a loud screeching of tires was heard outside of AFL house, again with no chance on clarifying what appears to be blatant ignoring of facts and a puzzling lack of acknowledging plain as day evidence while just explaining it away as all fine.
People need to remember that umpires are human. They have feelings and will make mistakes, just like the rest of us. One poor decision does not change the result of the game, no matter how much people in this place believe that it does.
I can understand that people get frustrated when an umpire pays a free kick which makes little sense and is obviously not a free kick and then the umpire boss comes out and says that it was the correct decision, which is sort of annoying because there was nothing wrong with the tackle, but is the umpire really to blame, well yes, because any ■■■■■■■ idiot that has watched a game of footy would know that it was a perfectly acceptable tackle and the fact that these ■■■■■■■ idiots get paid to do a job, but can’t can’t tell the ■■■■■■■ difference between a fair tackle and a dangerous tackle really ■■■■■■ me the ■■■■ off…I don’t want to harp on this because they are human and they make mistakes…who the ■■■■ am I kidding, these ■■■■■■■ morons shouldn’t be allowed to umpire…no, should not be allowed to set foot on a footy ground, as they are a ■■■■■■■ embarrassment who are put on this earth do do nothing more than ■■■■ with the minds of supporters of this great club.
If you had the skills, the best weapon is a humour based video splicing similar scenarios with different results.
Eg, put the 14 tummy taps in a video followed by Zaharakis one, add a cool hashtag, and even if the AFL don’t notice you’d have plenty of followers and a bunch of new troll friends.
I made a similar video to this a few years ago but was told by BB to cease and desist.
Good luck TVB - this is a fight that has been needed to be fought at least since 60+ years ago when John Coleman was rubbed out of the finals by the corrupt work of the- then single field maggot, backed up by the VFL Tribunal. That denied us a certain flag.
As we all should know, JC was one of the greatest - if not THE greatest - players of all time. And an acknowledged gentleman by all who knew him.
So if he hated the maggots, that is good enough for me…
TVB, more power to your arm. But this has been a doomed cause for at least 66 years.
If you had the skills, the best weapon is a humour based video splicing similar scenarios with different results.
Eg, put the 14 tummy taps in a video followed by Zaharakis one, add a cool hashtag, and even if the AFL don’t notice you’d have plenty of followers and a bunch of new troll friends.
I made a similar video to this about 8 years ago but was told by BB to cease and desist.
Good luck TVB - this is a fight that has been needed to be fought at least since 60+ years ago when John Coleman was rubbed out of the finals by the corrupt work of the- then single field maggot, backed up by the VFL Tribunal. That denied us a certain flag.
As we all should know, JC was one of the greatest - if not THE greatest - players of all time. And an acknowledged gentleman by all who knew him.
So if he hated the maggots, that is good enough for me…
TVB, more power to your arm. But this has been a doomed cause for at least 66 years.
Not only did he hate the maggots but he actually banned them from the pub he owned.
My proposal.
Get rid of specific boundary umpires.
Train all umpires to take the field or do the boundary. Allow the ones doing the boundary to make limited calls, eg deliberate oob, incorrect disposal (where vision for the field umpire may be obstructed), reports.
Two field umps per game.
Four running the boundary.
Being the boundary ump is a bit like getting a run in the twos. You make mistakes, you run the boundary next week.
Incentive to improve, incentive to perform.
Won’t happen, I know, but 3 field umpires isn’t as bad as 4.
Having only 2 will reduce inconsistencies.
Letting boundary umpires make calls wouldn’t be a bad thing, so many times the field umpires are on the wrong side of the pack and miss the obvious throw or deliberate out of bounds that all the crowd sees
I wish you luck but as others have said, it would have to be a comprehensive statistical analysis of not just Essendon but every other club in the league. And then you get down to the really difficult part - what are your parameters? You’d have to look at not only where the decisions are paid, the timing, who’s paying them but do you also include decisions that are there but aren’t paid? And how do you actually determine that? Was it not paid because the umpire is “corrupt” or was it not paid because he was unsighted? Actually the paid/unpaid thing would be an interesting question in terms of full-forwards. Compare JD to the other 17 full-forwards and find out whether he really is, as we tend to think, hard done by or whether all full-forwards are hard done by. Is Selwood or whoever you prefer as much of a protected species as we perceive him to be?
To be honest, doing a major review would probably drive you round the bend unless you really, really love statistics and I’m not sure what it would actually tell you given that far too much of umpiring is subjective, something that is made all the worse with 4 field umpires, each giving four different interpretations of the same rule.
Though that might be an avenue to drive down - review individual games and determine how much variation there is in the interpretation of a specific number of rules. I know when I played the game in the VWFL, we used to have one umpire and it was easy enough to adapt your game to that specific umpire’s style by about quarter time. To work out what he was going to pay as in the back, too high etc etc. It must be incredibly difficult to do that with 4 umpires and I daresay that leads to a certain amount of player frustration, let alone supporter frustration.
Sorry, I’m sort of just throwing ideas out now. I work in data analysis so this is kind of my jam in many ways.
Welcome to the world of Sports Entertainment. Unfortunately we aren’t entertaining this year - like the equivalent of 1980’s WWF potato, Paul Roma. He got nothing from the refs either.
But hang in there, next year we will be all Ric Flair and we won’t even care about the maggots.
" I am of the opinion they have to be held to account for this, they must explain themselves over this because for lots of our supporters this is becoming too much to handle. "
I think its a great idea, particularly if done from a purely analytical view. Free kicks where, when, for what, and to whom. And on which ground and who is the home team. Would also be interesting to see to which players.
I think provided you go from the perspective of trying to improve the umpiring or the game, rather than trying to prove they are biased you will get better traction.
I do think umpires inherently make assumptions about the ability of players and make calls accordingly. Hence better players get the benefit of the doubt, lesser players or new players tend not to get anything.
I think you will also find players who look coordinated and elegant in the way they move will get better results than the effective but uncoordinated. Look at the number of times Fletcher was reported for rubbish stuff. He was too ungainly.
Umpires are like school teachers, managers, employers, and most other people, they play favourites. And what should be purely analytical decisions are based on inherent bias. That will never go. But an analysis such as this might go some way to helping the AFL, media etc to understand that when you put discretion into what should be a hard and fast rule you open the door to less consistency and more inherent bias.
Expecting umpires to make a split second decision on the “intent” of the player is laughable.
I think it will also be interesting to see if the “make up frees in the last quarter” is a fact or just an impression we all get. If it is a consistent theme, particularly with the lower sides, there may well be questions to answer.
Good luck. I look forward to seeing the results, or even progressive results.
My proposal.
Get rid of specific boundary umpires.
Train all umpires to take the field or do the boundary. Allow the ones doing the boundary to make limited calls, eg deliberate oob, incorrect disposal (where vision for the field umpire may be obstructed), reports.
Two field umps per game.
Four running the boundary.
Being the boundary ump is a bit like getting a run in the twos. You make mistakes, you run the boundary next week.
Incentive to improve, incentive to perform.
Won’t happen, I know, but 3 field umpires isn’t as bad as 4.
Having only 2 will reduce inconsistencies.
I’ve been leaning to 1 controlling umpire + 4 boundary umps/linesmen, but this also works.
The positioning with 4 field umpires has appeared to be terrible.
Is it the umpires fault that they aren’t good enough for the afl, or is it their superiors?
What is the pass mark to earn the right to umpire in an afl match? 50% multiple questions answered correctly? 40% ?
Even lower?
One would hope that the pass mark is 90% correct, as it’s supposed to be an elite competition, the highest standard in Australia.
The pass mark they get is for doing what they are told to do.
Plus they have the only job in Australia which does not have any visible review, and they can’t be criticised by anyone in their industry, their peers, and especially by those affected by their decisions.
Furthermore, the maggots can’t be criticised by anyone who CAN see what they are doing when they behave so corruptly because maggot apologists accuse those people of being conspiracy theorists.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that is so terribly frustrated with the maggots!
Sadly I just don’t think we or any club will ever get answers for clearly poor performance.
I just once would like for someone to justify some of the decisions or just admit that they may have made a mistake.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that is so terribly frustrated with the maggots!
Sadly I just don't think we or any club will ever get answers for clearly poor performance.
I just once would like for someone to justify some of the decisions or just admit that they may have made a mistake.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that is so terribly frustrated with the maggots!
Sadly I just don't think we or any club will ever get answers for clearly poor performance.
I just once would like for someone to justify some of the decisions or just admit that they may have made a mistake.