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Umpire farce - Getting worse by the minute!
- Thread starter iLoVeNeWmAn
- Start date
Oh, so that's it, the likes of Collingwood are a bunch of marshmallows who don't play hard so get lots of frees?
Give me a break, every team plays hard.
The discrepancy is real and likely has a lot of explanations.
But the fact that the umpiring is grossly inconsistent is simply not good enough for a professional sport. I'll add that I mainly blame the AFL for their insistence on reducing the number of free kicks per game, this means the umpires are, in effect, directed to not pay some free kicks which can do nothing but make the decisions inconsistent. Add to this the constant rule changes and interpretation adjustments and you cannot be surprised by the inconsistent adjudication.
The fact that there is such a large discrepancy year after year though does need some explanation.
DS
I know we seem to be getting a hard time from the umps but our style of play invites extra scrutiny. You can play a game to get frees to help a win or you can play a game on the edge essentially 'breaking a few eggs' and win by skill and determination whatever else gets in the way. I would rather see Dusty get penalized for a hard hand-off or Dylan brutal tackle than win by the likes of Dangerfield playing for frees.
Bennnny
Punt Road End. The best place to watch The Tiges.
Look, I have always been very critical of umpires.
But you will notice that while I am of the view that the fact we consistently concede more frees than we receive needs an explanation, I don't think there is a vendetta or anything. I will add though, that there was certainly something fishy going on at a match against Hawthorn a couple of years ago. I think the free kick count was about 9-1 at half time and after the long break you could just see that the umpires were trying to even it up as it was embarrassing. I find it very hard to believe they weren't very aware of the discrepancy at half time.
My main beef is the AFL creating effectively a KPI for the umpires to reduce the number of free kicks awarded. There really is only one way to do this, especially in a professional sport consisting of clubs who employ people to analyse every game to the Nth degree, and that is to ignore infractions and not pay all of the free kicks the umpires see. Now, if you are a professional club, analysing every game, you are going to look at patterns and work out what you can get away with. We see this all the time. How often do you see blatant, and I mean ridiculously blatant you can see with the naked eye from 100m away, pushes in the back when 2 players are running at the ball? I see it every week, from players in every team. They do it because they know they can break the rules with impunity 90% of the time. Throwing, blocking forwards trying to run for a pack mark, holding players when not in possession of the ball, the list goes on and on. All I really want is honesty - if pushing another player in the back while chasing the ball is against the rules, pay the free kick. If pushing another player in the back while chasing the ball is ok, then change the rule.
Look back at games from the 1970s. Players are very careful not to push in the back or tackle before the opponent has possession. They knew they would concede a free if they did this. Now, they know they will get away with it most of the time so they are willing to concede a few frees because most of the time they will get away with it.
The other one is waiting around before a ball up, absolutely pointless and positively encourages teams to play for a stoppage because they know they will get plenty of time to set up around and behind the ball.
Then the AFL wonders why the game is congested. They lament the game doesn't flow yet they are the very ones preventing the flow.
DS
thanks. it is interesting.
at a quick guess we have played 94 games over the last 4 years.- have had 3609 frees paid in out games @38.4 per game. 17.7 for and 20.7 against.
finals- 18.6 for and 18.9 against. = 37.5/game.
do we play a different style in finals, are we more disciplined or are they umpired differently? or is the difference really that small that it just noise.
Thank God they do umpire finals differently or Geelong would have won the G.F by a record margin with their merry band of free kick chasers.
That’s the key to our success in finals. Umpires put their whistles away and teams that focus on the ball and play with continual momentum get rewarded whilst those searching for frees end up on the ground with their mouths hanging open.
Bennnny
Punt Road End. The best place to watch The Tiges.
That umpires "put their whistles away" in finals, that's quite possibly because they might finally do what most supporters tell them to do during the year and that's to
"STICK YOUR WHISTLE UP YOUR A&$E"
No, it's more that we just play better than other teams in finals.
Umpires have nothing to do with it.
half the posts on here are saying pay what is there, the other half say put the whistles away. if they start "putting" the whistles away it means they start picking and choosing what frees they pay, rather than paying a free when they see one, which will lead to further inconsistencies.
but if they pay everything they see we end up with 100 frees paid per game, which nobody wants. i do wonder though if they started paying everything they see how long it would take for players to infringe less.
Need to pay the genuine frees. Don't pay a free if it's obvious the player played for it (ducking, faking a push in the back). Don't pay the highly technical 50m penalties (borderline infringements of the "protected zone"). Don't pay the deliberate OOB unless it's bloody obvious.
I think it would take one week for the players to adjust, I say pay all the free kicks, but, even more important, umpire all games the same (why do I even need to say this?). I remember as a kid there were plenty of games with 90-100 free kicks, it was the way it was. I don't care if they pay 100 frees a game, if the infringement is there then pay the free. What is the problem? Seriously, everyone keeps talking about how much better the game was years ago, look at a game from the 1970s: 90-100 free kicks (I'll add, very quickly adjudicated and off we go). Even in the early 1990s there were 50-60 free kicks every game. Maybe it is the fact that players know they can get away with interfering with their opponent who is attacking the ball which leads to all the ball ups and congestion. Another irony is that there are probably more rules today than there were years ago, and the adjudication of the rules is certainly far more complex.
If there is an infringement pay the free kick, if this is a problem, change the bloody rules - simple.
Quickdraw, with the deliberate out of bounds you have to understand the rule is not that you deliberately made the ball go out of bounds, it is that you did not make sufficient effort to keep it in the field of play, there is quite a difference.
DS
Cheers David, but sometimes I wonder what a player could have done differently. It is an oval ball and will bounce wherever it wants. Bit hard on the player sometimes.
That said, Dusty seems to be able to make the thing talk
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