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Umpire farce - Getting worse by the minute!
- Thread starter iLoVeNeWmAn
- Start date
Pffft. He did it wrong.
Ask Gill out for a coffee and guess who just happens to walk past while they sip on their lattes? Dimma’ sold mate Clarko.
Clarko would fix it
The table you posted actually under-states the damage. We have a -47 differential after 6 rounds. Our differential is -2 total in our two wins. So in our 4 losses it stands at -45, basically 3 free kicks more to our opponents than us per 1/4.
The HUN have a breakdown of where the frees are eg D50, centre, F50 in their stats sheet for each game. The stats come from champion data so there out there but other than this stat sheet I haven't seen them
Yeah even the AFL tables shows -47 for us. I just copied that table from someone else on Twitter.
Have a look at this from AFL tables https://afltables.com/afl/stats/frees.html#2022
Do a sort on % for most recent seasons to see us on the bottom most times (pre-2017 we were mid table)
Do a sort on % for the stats on the top 'Alltime Free Kick Tallies' and notice WB, WC and Scumwood as the obviously gifted since 1965!!
I’d love to see analysis by umpire. I’m sure there are some serious anomalies out there for/against particular teams that should be addressed.
For sure if I umpired Essendon or Geelong they would get jack *smile* until late in game to even it up once they had lost.
For sure if I umpired Essendon or Geelong they would get jack *smile* until late in game to even it up once they had lost.
I wouldn’t even bother to even it up if it was geelong. I want to hear them squeal and see how they like it
That's why he won't be the next big dog to run the doghouse.
Over the last month I have asked two mates of mine who barrack for different teams to carefully watch Richmond games to see if we are getting shafted or maybe I am too one-eyed.
One guy is a Collingwood supporter. He came with me to two games live, the Bulldogs game and the Melbourne one. Another guy is a long time Carlton supporter. Both these guys have been left in disbelief with how badly we get treated every single week and have told me I am right.
Other teams complain about how one decision here or there were bad. We have complete games of football with bad decisions going against Richmond completely changing the outcome.
I am going to call it as I see it. I believe 100% this is corruption and am absolutely sick of it. I thought the umpire bias was bad in previous years, but they've stepped it up even more this year.
The AFL has never liked or treated Richmond well. I'm not talking just about the onfield (we are now heading into 7 years at the bottom of the free kick differential). Off field Richmond has got shafted for decades too.
Shafted by the Fixture:
* Until winning a Premiership, Richmond consistently being scheduled to play in Geelong (including playing them there in 2017)
* Until winning a Premiership, Richmond consistently being scheduled to play in North Melbourne in Tassie
* Essendon and Collingwood have the wool over everyones eyes. Everyone complains about them playing ANZAC day. This is not the problem. No one ever asks, why do these teams play each other TWO TIMES every single season? In a competition where teams only play 5 teams twice per season, this is rigging the draw to inflate the crowd numbers of these two teams.
I have no problem with the 2 top points mentioned above , but why did the other "Big teams" in Carlton, Essendon, Collingwood and Hawthorn never have to do this crap? Those teams hadn't been scheduled to play Geelong in Geelong since the 90's with the reason given they are big drawing sides so they get the game at the MCG. Yet the Tigers have ALWAYS been the biggest drawing side. Despite getting shafted with the draw that minimises crowd numbers, the Tigers have been getting the most at people attending games way before their premiership year. So why did the other 4 teams never get to have those fixtures in Geelong or North in Tassie (bar maybe Hawthorn as they both played there at times)? Why was the Biggest team given this draw and the other smaller big teams given excuses they are big?
If it wasn't just a case of supporter bases, perhaps they base it on team performance? Nope, can't be the case. Carlton have been the worst team over the last 20 years, Essendon are the team that hasn't won a final in the longest time (20 years) and Collingwood also went a period of around 7 years of mediocrity too.
Shafted by Off field:
I told my Collingwood mate what was worse:
During the 2020 Covid Restricted Year:
* A senior player from The Bulldogs Drink Driving and being way over the limit. So much so he hits 4 Parked Cars. Result: 4 week Suspension, $5000 fine (One week for every car he hit).
* Buckley and Sanderson (Coach and Assistant Coach), breaking covid protcall curfew and playing Tennis. Result: Collingwood (not the coaches) being fined $25,000 but no games missed for these senior members.
* A Teenager from Richmond in his second year of Football breaking curfew in Kebabgate. Result: 10 Week suspension $100,000 fine.
The point about all this is, people could argue that umpires have to make split second decisions and they make mistakes. However even when it comes to off field stuff in regards the fixture or other things where the people making the decisions have a lot of time, Richmond still get shafted.
So yeah I am calling it as I see it. I believe the Umping is corrupt. They don't want Richmond to do well. MAYBE once Richmond have lost enough games due to their corruption so that they feel we can't make the finals, only then will they start giving us a slightly half decent run.
I just wish there was somewhere I could complain to either the AFL directly or lodge my complaint properly to the RFC. The effect on me is for nearly 30 years I have barely ever missed going to watch the Tigers play. I would go to both Home and Away games. I have now decided I will only go to the home games and never attend the away games. My homes games have been paid for with my Membership, so I know the money goes to the club. I don't want to spend money on away games that go to the AFL. I don't want to pay money to the AFL to view diabolical umpiring displays directly influence the result of Richmond games in favour of the opposition.
One guy is a Collingwood supporter. He came with me to two games live, the Bulldogs game and the Melbourne one. Another guy is a long time Carlton supporter. Both these guys have been left in disbelief with how badly we get treated every single week and have told me I am right.
Other teams complain about how one decision here or there were bad. We have complete games of football with bad decisions going against Richmond completely changing the outcome.
I am going to call it as I see it. I believe 100% this is corruption and am absolutely sick of it. I thought the umpire bias was bad in previous years, but they've stepped it up even more this year.
The AFL has never liked or treated Richmond well. I'm not talking just about the onfield (we are now heading into 7 years at the bottom of the free kick differential). Off field Richmond has got shafted for decades too.
Shafted by the Fixture:
* Until winning a Premiership, Richmond consistently being scheduled to play in Geelong (including playing them there in 2017)
* Until winning a Premiership, Richmond consistently being scheduled to play in North Melbourne in Tassie
* Essendon and Collingwood have the wool over everyones eyes. Everyone complains about them playing ANZAC day. This is not the problem. No one ever asks, why do these teams play each other TWO TIMES every single season? In a competition where teams only play 5 teams twice per season, this is rigging the draw to inflate the crowd numbers of these two teams.
I have no problem with the 2 top points mentioned above , but why did the other "Big teams" in Carlton, Essendon, Collingwood and Hawthorn never have to do this crap? Those teams hadn't been scheduled to play Geelong in Geelong since the 90's with the reason given they are big drawing sides so they get the game at the MCG. Yet the Tigers have ALWAYS been the biggest drawing side. Despite getting shafted with the draw that minimises crowd numbers, the Tigers have been getting the most at people attending games way before their premiership year. So why did the other 4 teams never get to have those fixtures in Geelong or North in Tassie (bar maybe Hawthorn as they both played there at times)? Why was the Biggest team given this draw and the other smaller big teams given excuses they are big?
If it wasn't just a case of supporter bases, perhaps they base it on team performance? Nope, can't be the case. Carlton have been the worst team over the last 20 years, Essendon are the team that hasn't won a final in the longest time (20 years) and Collingwood also went a period of around 7 years of mediocrity too.
Shafted by Off field:
I told my Collingwood mate what was worse:
During the 2020 Covid Restricted Year:
* A senior player from The Bulldogs Drink Driving and being way over the limit. So much so he hits 4 Parked Cars. Result: 4 week Suspension, $5000 fine (One week for every car he hit).
* Buckley and Sanderson (Coach and Assistant Coach), breaking covid protcall curfew and playing Tennis. Result: Collingwood (not the coaches) being fined $25,000 but no games missed for these senior members.
* A Teenager from Richmond in his second year of Football breaking curfew in Kebabgate. Result: 10 Week suspension $100,000 fine.
The point about all this is, people could argue that umpires have to make split second decisions and they make mistakes. However even when it comes to off field stuff in regards the fixture or other things where the people making the decisions have a lot of time, Richmond still get shafted.
So yeah I am calling it as I see it. I believe the Umping is corrupt. They don't want Richmond to do well. MAYBE once Richmond have lost enough games due to their corruption so that they feel we can't make the finals, only then will they start giving us a slightly half decent run.
I just wish there was somewhere I could complain to either the AFL directly or lodge my complaint properly to the RFC. The effect on me is for nearly 30 years I have barely ever missed going to watch the Tigers play. I would go to both Home and Away games. I have now decided I will only go to the home games and never attend the away games. My homes games have been paid for with my Membership, so I know the money goes to the club. I don't want to spend money on away games that go to the AFL. I don't want to pay money to the AFL to view diabolical umpiring displays directly influence the result of Richmond games in favour of the opposition.
You have possibly thrown in a few things there that weaken your argument.
Kebabgate I am quite sure copped such a heavy penalty because it was the club's second offence after the pamper day Brook Cotchin indulged in. We copped $25k for that I think but nobody was suspended or omitted from the bubble.
Also, I don’t think Richmond have always been the biggest drawing side. Maybe relative to ladder position it is arguable but we were down for a long time and often with crowds to match.
The umpiring I am with you. Something seems wrong there. It doesn’t get picked up by most because as you have seen with your mates you have to be watching for it to actually notice. My mate reckoned it is the way Richmond plays, and points to the fact that since 2017 there are about 5 teams who have been paid less free kicks than Richmond. When I showed him how Richmond had played substantially more games than those other 5 teams and in fact our free kicks for per match were the lowest in the AFL since 2017 he conceded that defeated his argument.
There have been some things that have in my opinion clearly pointed to bias from the AFL Footy Operations department against Richmond in recent years.
1. The 2020 Essendon v Richmond match in Darwin. Grimes fined for staging by the MRO(effecively Steven Hocking.) Appeals, overturned at Tribunal, not guilty. Vlastuin fined for staging same match. Appeals, overturned at Tribunal. Lynch sent straight tot he Tribunal charged with striking. Thrown out. So 3 Richmond players who were all guilty of offences according Hocking, all not guilty according the the Tribunal - which is not in the footy ops department. The odds of Hocking getting 3 from 3 wrong against one team in one game without heavy bias being involved would be astronomical.
2. Marlion Pickett’s treatment at the hands of the MRO both in his 2021(1 week suspension) and 2022 case(fine) where he was on both occasions retaliating to treatment as least as forceful and illegal by opponents who went unreported. Curiously this had also been the case with Lynch in Darwin where Hurley was shown slapping at Lynch’s broken hand in the lead-up to that incident, but again, no report for Hurley.
3. The new rules introduced, and particularly the stand rule was clearly a response to Richmond stifling the ball movement of other sides who like to chip the ball around and take a lot of uncontested marks, chief amongst which was Geelong, the club Hocking came from and seemlessly moved back to as CEO. This is imo an unchallenged scandal in he sport that nobody seems to care about.
4. The fact that Richmond are both the least rewarded and most penalised team over a 5+ year sample in terms of free kicks, most of which coincides with Hocking and now Brad Scott(Geelong coach’s twin brother) being in charge of the footy ops department. Unnaturally enough, that one single position, AFL footy ops boss, has full control over all MRO decisions(and non-decisions), instructions to umpires, and is the most influential person by far on rule changes.
So from the one footy ops department, Richmond get: the most adverse free kick outcomes in the AFL measured objectively, on both sides of the ledger, frees for and frees against, some MRO decisions that cannot possibly be understood any other way than through being the result of bias, and rule changes designed to curb our strengths.
But the king of them all, the thing that killed us for 30+ years and even recently has put us at a disadvantage, is the zone system. We were given the most remote and one of the poorest country zones - Sunraysia, effectively, Mildura. And the following was the metro zone division:
If you look really hard, you will see a tiny bit of Tiger in there somewhere. Country zones were originally supposed to be rotated between the clubs, but this idea was soon abandoned. There are articles around saying that Richmond is one of the clubs hat argued against the rotation. This is very different to what I have heard Ian Wilson say, and he was the Richmond AFL delegate at the time. Hawthorn’s success over the last 50 years can be almost completely explained by their recruiting zones setting the club up.
This really set Richmond back having just essentially Mildura and a tiny portion of the Eastern suburbs to recruit from for 20 odd years. This basically destroyed our ability to enter the national comp in the 90’s on any sort of level terms. And when the NGA zones were drawn up we also somehow don’t seem to be getting any players out of our area.
Admittedly I am not 100% clear on the precise effect of zoning areas but we were clearly not given prime areas and it obviously did not work out well for us.
I enjoyed your post and didn't know about the zones thing.
I'll address the two points above.
1) Yeah good point about Brook Cotchin adding to the AFL's irritation with Richmond, however no need to penalise the guy in his 2nd year of football so aggressively. Maybe Stack should have pulled an Adam Goodes and said his treatment from the AFL was racist especially given other transgressions such as hitting 4 cars earlier in the season whilst drink driving barely got the bulldogs senior player any suspension. Whilst it wasn't racist as such, it was another "Teamist" reaction from the AFL.
2) I will post you the figures regarding crowd attendances over the years.
Richmond Home And Away Attendances Position Based On Other Teams:
2012 Richmond 5th
2013 Richmond 2nd
2014 Richmond 5th
2015 Richmond 1st
2016 Richmond 2nd (Amazing stat here given Richmond finished13th and this was honestly the worst football Richmond played for ages).
Carlton as low as 6th best in attendances in two of the years mentioned above.
No need posting the figures when Richmond won their premierships. So at worst Richmond 5th in attendances even in years they played crap football AND had draws that favored the other "Big" teams to be able to inflate their figures (ie Essendon and Collingwood always playing twice each season, and no North in Tassie games, Or Geelong in Geelong Games).
I remember years ago having an argument with a Collingwood supporter at work and saying Richmond has the most supporters by Far and it isn't even close. I told him just wait for the tigers to get some success and we'll see. He laughed at me. I was well and truly proven correct. The easiest way to see this is go to the 2017 Prelim between Richmond and GWS. The Tigers sold the MCG out in no time, and we would have been able to get more if the ground could hold it.
A year later, Collingwood playing their first final IN MELBOURNE for 7 years also against GWS. (Yes they had lost to West Coast the week before in Perth), Given the fans should have been starving for finals and not be cash strapped given this was the first final for so long, this was the litmuss test to see who has the most supporters. Collingwood get a respectable 72000 people to the game, but a long way off what the Tigers got the year before against the same opposition.
So to your point, whilst Richmond didn't always have the most crowd attendances, they were either the most or close. There were also a lot of reasons in terms of fixturing (including the games Richmond sold interstate). Either way, the AFL pretending to not recognise Richmond as one of the big teams when fixturing Geelong and North games , shows more bias from the AFL against Richmond.
While we are at it, despite Richmond not getting many free kicks, any time they think a Richmond player "Dived" it is highlighted over and over. How many times did we see the Alex Rance one? I remember them talking about it for weeks. Richmond was playing Port Adelaide once. The so called Alex Rance dive happened in another game and the commentators kept bringing it up. However in that same game, Justin Westoff dived 4 times and the commentators were blind to it. Not a peep.
Last week I saw a Melbourne guy diving. I was at the game, did the commentators talk about him doing that? I bet they didn't. They are so quick to target any Richmond player and put them over the hot coals for these things (Grimes was another poor guy that had to get this treatment). You would think it is Richmond that gets the good end of the stick from the umpiring by the way they highlight these things and keep regurgitating one of these instances.
It still sickens me that the AFL got their knickers in a knot about Adam Goodes being booed despite him being the king of dogs act plays. We are supposed to cheer him over that? At the same time, Alex Rance in what proved to be his last game got the biggest cheer from Carlton supporters. Carlton had nothing to cheer about in that game. However when they saw Rance doing his knee, the biggest cheer was heard around the ground. I have never seen that happen to any other player. Now was it reported by the media? Of course not. Had it happened to Adam Goodes or another favourite son or perhaps anyone from another team, it would have been front page news. If it was Adam Goodes that got cheered for being seriously injured, everyone would have been labeled a racist.
But I digress. As I stated previously, I 100% believe that the way the Richmond games are being umpired is corruption. Throw in off field things mentioned here and it adds a pretty clear picture of the AFL and media not wanting Richmond to succeed.
That amazing dive by Hawkins seems to have disappeared off the radar in a bloody big hurry. Where are the weeks of outrage over that, it was one of the best dives I've seen since Sydney 2000, all but forgotten now.
DS
DS
