Umpire farce - Getting worse by the minute!

[Redford]

I just watched the last quarter of the Melbourne GWS game.

Gawn goes for a mark in front of goal, dropped, possibly could have been paid, but then goes for the ball and one of his arms is clearly being held by the GWS player.

A few minutes later a GWS player is trying to gather the ball on the run while Petracca tackles him.

Plenty more instances of this I could cite.

FFS, pay holding the man. Both of the above were really obvious, yet 4 umpires can't see it? Bollocks, they are not enforcing the rule.

You want a more open game, you want players to gain possession and actually have a chance to dispose to advantage, you want more Dusty moments, you want more scoring? Don't bring in nonsensical crap like the stand rule, just enforce one of the oldest rules in the game, if a player is not in possession of the ball they get a free kick. A player attempting to gain possession, by definition, is not in possession of the ball.

They have turned the game into a rolling maul because of the stupid way the rules are interpreted, and they try to fix it by adding in stupid rules which are damned near impossible to adjudicate, see MD Jazz's post above. It isn't working and it is damned frustrating as players don't get a decent chance to gather the ball because they are getting tackled before they have it.

I assume the morons running the show are happy with this situation, nobody could be stupid enough not to see the detrimental impact not enforcing holding the man has on the game.

DS

Yep.

The AFL is obsessed with bringing in rules and interpretations that are pointless and often detract from the game or, at a minimum, are so ill-conceived and so damn hard for the umpires to implement, that you just have these wild fluctuations in their application i.e. there's no relatively acceptable consistency. The stand rule is just one of many examples.

But to be honest, I'm also sick to the back teeth of the umpires themselves. Between this overt negative bias that they have with some teams (e.g. Richmond) or the positive bias they have with others (e.g. Dogs and Cwood), and then their inability to apply basic and fundamental rules that are blatantly obvious to all and sundry which then brings their actual competency into question, I've had enough of them as well. They're pathetic some of them.

Yet again on the weekend they failed miserably to apply a bunch of obvious frees. The failure to pay holding on Byrne-Jones was almost another Elliott-Dawson situation from the previous week. If Port had of lost that game you could guarantee the "umpire was unsighted" excuse would have been thrown up again. There were numerous and clearly obvious holding the man decisions that they failed to pay over the weekend. I seriously don't know how a jumper can be pulled nearly a foot off a player's skin but they can't see it. Unreal.

They couldn't even call a farcical 6 metre kick "play on" in the Swans game. And don't get me started on how many throws they didn't/wouldn't call either. Reckon I heard half a dozen times at least over the weekend commentators politely pointing out that they'd missed a free kick for throwing.

The actual standard of umpiring by the umpires themselves is just as bad as the AFL's endless tampering and subsequent undermining of the rules and in turn, umpiring is.

 

[snags]

Yep.

The AFL is obsessed with bringing in rules and interpretations that are pointless and often detract from the game or, at a minimum, are so ill-conceived and so damn hard for the umpires to implement, that you just have these wild fluctuations in their application i.e. there's no relatively acceptable consistency. The stand rule is just one of many examples.

But to be honest, I'm also sick to the back teeth of the umpires themselves. Between this overt negative bias that they have with some teams (e.g. Richmond) or the positive bias they have with others (e.g. Dogs and Cwood), and then their inability to apply basic and fundamental rules that are blatantly obvious to all and sundry which then brings their actual competency into question, I've had enough of them as well. They're pathetic some of them.

Yet again on the weekend they failed miserably to apply a bunch of obvious frees. The failure to pay holding on Byrne-Jones was almost another Elliott-Dawson situation from the previous week. If Port had of lost that game you could guarantee the "umpire was unsighted" excuse would have been thrown up again. There were numerous and clearly obvious holding the man decisions that they failed to pay over the weekend. I seriously don't know how a jumper can be pulled nearly a foot off a player's skin but they can't see it. Unreal.

They couldn't even call a farcical 6 metre kick "play on" in the Swans game. And don't get me started on how many throws they didn't/wouldn't call either. Reckon I heard half a dozen times at least over the weekend commentators politely pointing out that they'd missed a free kick for throwing.

The actual standard of umpiring by the umpires themselves is just as bad as the AFL's endless tampering and subsequent undermining of said umpiring is.

Well said I think you’ve captured my sentiments on this perfectly.

 

[RoarEmotion]

Yep.

The AFL is obsessed with bringing in rules and interpretations that are pointless and often detract from the game or, at a minimum, are so ill-conceived and so damn hard for the umpires to implement, that you just have these wild fluctuations in their application i.e. there's no relatively acceptable consistency. The stand rule is just one of many examples.

But to be honest, I'm also sick to the back teeth of the umpires themselves. Between this overt negative bias that they have with some teams (e.g. Richmond) or the positive bias they have with others (e.g. Dogs and Cwood), and then their inability to apply basic and fundamental rules that are blatantly obvious to all and sundry which then brings their actual competency into question, I've had enough of them as well. They're pathetic some of them.

Yet again on the weekend they failed miserably to apply a bunch of obvious frees. The failure to pay holding on Byrne-Jones was almost another Elliott-Dawson situation from the previous week. If Port had of lost that game you could guarantee the "umpire was unsighted" excuse would have been thrown up again. There were numerous and clearly obvious holding the man decisions that they failed to pay over the weekend. I seriously don't know how a jumper can be pulled nearly a foot off a player's skin but they can't see it. Unreal.

They couldn't even call a farcical 6 metre kick "play on" in the Swans game. And don't get me started on how many throws they didn't/wouldn't call either. Reckon I heard half a dozen times at least over the weekend commentators politely pointing out that they'd missed a free kick for throwing.

The actual standard of umpiring by the umpires themselves is just as bad as the AFL's endless tampering and subsequent undermining of said umpiring is.

Well said.

They miss the blatantly obvious ‘unintended’ consequences that a 14 year old could predict if asked.

Let me see what would happen if I told you that if your sister hits you in the head accidentally you get double pocket money and she loses hers (for 4 weeks)

Let me see what happens if the school doesn’t tell you or me how you did on the test for maths because maths is hard and we don’t want people not trying to do maths.

FMD.

 

[bozo]

What has also happened is that a player very rarely gets penalised now when the ball is knocked out in the tackle and what we see is that interpretation seems to be superceding prior opportunity.
It’s annoying because the player has still been tackled even if the ball has been knocked out of their hands, so if they had prior opportunity it should be a free.

Unless it is knocked out of a tiger players hand.

 

[Jason King]

What has also happened is that a player very rarely gets penalised now when the ball is knocked out in the tackle and what we see is that interpretation seems to be superceding prior opportunity.
It’s annoying because the player has still been tackled even if the ball has been knocked out of their hands, so if they had prior opportunity it should be a free.

Its so easy to adjudiocate too. If you take possesion are tackled and dont dispose of the ball legally, it should be holding the ball every day of the week.

 

[snags]

If someone like Gale went in there. You’d expect acknowledgement that there’s problems. A peeling back of the layers of new rules/interpretations with a focus on fundamentals and absolute rules not flexible interpretations. On this solid foundational principles you can then add new rules. There should be an independent body established to oversee rules to ensure one *smile* knuckle can’t make knee jerk decisions to supposedly increase scoring.

 

[DavidSSS]

We should go back to something like the ANFC, the game does not belong to the AFL alone, there are other leagues, other levels of competition and the AFL is way too insular to be totally in charge of the game. Much better for the game to have a variety of voices.

DS

 

[BrisTiger24]

Tomorrow night's rapists:

Justin Power (4)
Brendan Hosking (16)
Simon Meredith (21)
Robert Findlay (23)

 

[Brodders17]

We should go back to something like the ANFC, the game does not belong to the AFL alone, there are other leagues, other levels of competition and the AFL is way too insular to be totally in charge of the game. Much better for the game to have a variety of voices.

DS

Yes, the AFL is the Australian Football League. the game itself is footy or Aussie Rules. and the League should not run the game but somehow it has managed to do that.

 

[Merveille]

Centre Bounce……Free kick. ……..Sydney. Hoooldiiiing

 

[Merveille]

Stick it up your aaaars

 

[casper68]

l have been informed that the prior opportunity rule will be applied to both teams in the second half not just Sydney.

 

[Mycotchinrules]

Just putrid.

Nobody is the tiniest bit surprised

 

[Mycotchinrules]

Vlastuin with a one handed mark!

Yeah, cos Mills is holding his arm for the last 5 minutes. Nope, nothing to see here

 

[waiting]

We don’t get rewarded for anything.

 

[MD Jazz]

*smile*.

 

[tigersnake]

*smile*.

x2

 

[UKTiger]

The result that no on field umpire wanted tonight.

 

[CarnTheTiges]

AFL House will be demanding an explanation for the free to Nank close to goal.

 

[code yellow and black]

Unbelievable really. Glad they let a lot of free kicks go. But then they seemed to pluck them out against tigers. Really need to get Hands on ball first because we don’t get rewarded for tackles.

I not sure how umpires are able to call play on when a player handballs with one hand and the umpire is standing right there.