Could have, should have, would have, the AFL’s motives are clear around the EFC. The AFL don’t even try to hide their intentions. Say one thing, do another, make and break rules to suit themselves. Is it any wonder the players might be feeling flat and somewhat deflated, I am. How about you?
Yep, we have become the universal punching bag for the AFL and I wonder when our time will be up. When we’ve been good, we’ve bowed and scraped enough, we’re forgiven and the prodigal son is welcomed back into the fold?
My passion for AFL has diminished, it is not because I am p1ss weak it is because all of this is out of control and the only thing around this I can control is whether I stay or go.
I count for nothing in the greater scheme of things but it all means something for me.
I will never follow another club, Essendon is my team. I simply do not want to play the game.
The AFL masks themselves to be the good guys with a hundred different causes but behind the scenes, this networking, money making and power machine just pulls the strings of the puppets. Everyone and everything is disposable. Next……………………………………….
Diggers technically correct.
However. Rampe layed on the ball and made ess player unable to pick it up till he got out of the way, then pretended to give it back but didnt.
I would have paid the free kick cause he was a prick.
more so that he didnt get up straight away so ess player could get ball, than not actually giving it back.
Rampe was directly holding up the play so that the essendon player couldnt play opn quickly and swans could mobilise their defence back. He caused more of a hold up than devon smiths elbow on player which resulted in a extra 50m pentaly after stringers.
Rules are so grey and open to interpration umpires can choose when or not to pay them.
And even if they stuff up they will be looked after.
I don’t understand the point of 3 field umpires when they make such terrible mistakes? When there was only 1 field umpire they missed a lot, and that was fair enough, but to bring in 3 and still miss a lot says that either the rules are almost impossible to follow or the umps are utterly incompetent…or both.
Do you really think the AFL give a rat’s whether the umpires are competent or not. This is a billion organisation, they are a networking giant, raking it in by the truck load and some of the umpires who are in charge of the game on the field, are not even full time. Many are still part time. The AFL doesn’t even see that its important they have too many others things to think about.
If something and it usually does, the rules are changed to suit the occasion or simply ignored. There is no avenue to complain about the umpiring because the umpires are sacrosanct.
What a way to run an organisation, what an employer.
They missed a lot but didn’t cop the follow up scrutiny so it was forgotten about pretty quick. The one umpire also didn’t muck around, if they did see an obvious free kick- bang, it was paid and away it went.
Maybe the captains can vote for the umpires post game and give them a
3
2
1
for the best umpire of the year. and if they have all been crap then they can vote for the boundary umpires…lol
might give umpires an extra incentive to lift their game.
What he did was deliberately hold up the play, it’s a 50m penalty. It was probably a more brazen attempt to slow the play down than when stringer dropped the ball and they did pay 50m.
There was a blatant 50 that should have been paid to us in the pies game too.
And that’s the thing, AFL Maggots have discretion to further penalise a player in those circumstances if they see fit. It regularly leaves those watching frustrated and/or bewildered and sometimes leaves them speechless. Don’t get me me wrong, I like umpire discretion, but only when it agrees with my version of events. Outside of that narrow criteria, its a disgrace and should be stopped.
The ‘subservient - poor me’ cultural issues at EFC are endemic, and it exists from the board all the way down to the playing group. We are consistently crying behind closed doors about poor umpiring decisions, scheduling or whatever else is an issue with us, but never want to rock the boat or appear to not be the bigger person, acting like it doesn’t matter. All the while we are walked over by the AFL house, strong clubs, coaches taking digs at us, you name it. We occasionally bark back, but mostly it’s a minor jab before we go cry in the corner again.
Just because the club wants to get more bold about addressing it’s cultural issues and building a strong club again doesn’t give the players an excuse the hide behind whatever attack we are running with at the time. A strong club would attack the Umpires, AFL and Players for under performing at the same time.
So I was walking down the street and I saw a Maggot so I shot him.
Cops pull me over and told that is against the rules. I said that the rules allow me some discretion. So they let me go.
As mentioned elsewhere we have a maggot in the family (by marriage I hasten to add) and he told my brother that the AFL have given him discretion regarding the Rampe incident. Never mind a free kick is the difference between 0 or 4 points.
And of course, their Irishman getting a BS 50, and running deliberately into Smith to get a reaction, causing another 50??? All good of course in AFLSSR.
Funny isn’t it. The “Saga” stain is a gift that keeps on giving or not. Having Collingwood, Geelong and Swans is “good for Footy”. Can’t have those drug “cheats” on our Finals is the thoughts from the General Secretary Gillon.
I thought John did a good job here of outlining the incident without crying poor EFC. This is all (publically) that we could ask for. There is no way it or anything else will change the outcome, but at least something was said.
