Umpire farce - Getting worse by the minute!

[zippadeee]

The AFL's headless chook, administration on the run, George Castagna approach to rule making,

had to get one right eventually.

Blokes can take speccies.

yay

Wash your mouth out.
Castagna is NOT a headless chook. He just a chook.

It doesn’t matter what they have done today, no player besides Howe has been pulled up on this rule for more then 12 weeks and the flkheads pluck out 2 against us.
We only won by 6pts. Imagine if we lost by 6pts.
The outcry would be unbelievable.

 

[SpaceAce]

The AFL are a bad joke.....so basically they have backflipped to allow players to mark the ball as they have been doing for 150 years.
What a bunch of *smile* wits!!!

 

[mrposhman]

I can't believe he said they were the right calls. Ludicrous. If they actually think they could cause injury and should have been free kicks, then you might as well take contested marking out of the game as a knee to the back of the head has far more chance of causing injury, so if they are deadest on this causing injury *smile* then take that out and watch the sport die then.

They are a bunch of morons that make it up as they go along.

 

[DavidSSS]

Ok, so we have the laws of the game, fine. But we all know there are interpretations on top of this. Where are they, are we allowed to see these? We are the owners of the clubs, we are the owners of the game. Publish the interpretation guide.

While I'm at it, WTF does it say about holding the man? The rule states you cannot hold a man not in possession of the football, what is the interpretation? You pay a free when you feel like it?

The studs up rule is a joke, crap rule, badly written and with some mystical interpretation we aren't allowed to know about and applied, as usual, very inconsistently.

This is amateur hour in a professional sport, the AFL are a joke.

DS

 

[Djevv]

Personally I found the written rule easy to understand & interpret. One of the original Toby Greene incidents involved a opposition player getting kicked in the face if memory serves. What Jack did was nothing like that. But I suppose it all turns on how they understand ‘likely to cause injury’.

 

[tigertim]

It’s all a bit Fawlty over at AFL House.

Gil: how’d you go on the studs up *smile* up Stevo?

Hocking: I told them that even though Riewoldts 2 “studs up” frees were technically correct that from now on that ruling will change so they won’t be technically correct from here. Best not bring it up again though. I mean I mentioned it but I think I got away with it.”

 

[TOT70]

Cant wait till somebody takes a "studs-up" mark against us in the next few weeks. And they pay the mark.

 

[tigerlove]

Cant wait till somebody takes a "studs-up" mark against us in the next few weeks. And they pay the mark.

Well they're changing the rule immediately apparently so it will be fine. The AFL has indirectly admitted that the decisions were wrong. They should have sorted this out weeks ago when the same incident was brought up.

 

[tigerlove]

Personally I found the written rule easy to understand & interpret. One of the original Toby Greene incidents involved a opposition player getting kicked in the face if memory serves. What Jack did was nothing like that. But I suppose it all turns on how they understand ‘likely to cause injury’.

Not only that Toby's incident was from a handball, it wasn't even a marking contest. Just crazy to equate these two incidents as similar things.

 

[TigerForce]

Cant wait till somebody takes a "studs-up" mark against us in the next few weeks. And they pay the mark.

The Howe incident happened months ago and Jack's mark was very similar. So, why wait until we cop a *smile* free against for the rules to be changed???

 

[TT33]

The Howe incident happened months ago and Jack's mark was very similar. So, why wait until we cop a *smile* free against for the rules to be changed???

Don't look for logic when it's anything to do with the AFL

 

[TrialByVideo]

Don't look for logic when it's anything to do with the AFL

Without a doubt SHocking is the worst footy operations boss since Ian Collins....
tho at least Collo hoodwinked his own club into a long-term deal at Disneyland which in part has contributed to them remaining *smile* ... gets a tick for that

 

[22nd Man]

Is it only me but I'm sure I used to call them "stops"...As in need to change into the long stop boots today? Studs a pommy roundball term? Fire away.

 

[22nd Man]

Can a player now use his foot to push a player out of the marking contest? Does the player have to have both feet off the ground when the boot is planted on the opponent?
PS I went ballistic when the first free was paid against Jack ...had perfect side on view barely touched let alone could have caused injury.
pS the winning mark at the Gabba the lion just about strangled his openent with both hands as he leverered himself into the air (about 5 fit 8 at his zenith) but that is now a mark of the year contender.

 

[DavidSSS]

Well they're changing the rule immediately apparently so it will be fine. The AFL has indirectly admitted that the decisions were wrong. They should have sorted this out weeks ago when the same incident was brought up.

They haven't changed the rule, just the interpretation. It was a ridiculous interpretation given the wording of the rule anyway.

I went looking on the website today, can't find the interpretations, where are they? Why can't we see them? Are they actually written down or is this all just a smokescreen for utter incompetence?

While we're at it, are the Howe mark and Jack's 2 marks on Sunday the only cases of studs up marks in the last few months? Somehow I doubt it, so not only was this a crap interpretation of the badly written rule, it is yet more gross inconsistency by the umpires.

Amateur hour yet again from the AFL. Any other organisation would be severely embarrassed altering the way the rules are interpreted this close to the end of the season, not the AFL. It is time we stopped accepting that this is good enough. Add it to the farcical kerfuffle about crowd behaviour earlier in the year (umpires getting called names was apparently a major disaster, geez how would these idiots have reacted to the rough and tumble at suburban grounds a few decades ago?). What a joke. The AFL are so lucky that Australian Rules Football is such a great game and the fanbase of all but the manufactured clubs are loyal, otherwise they would have killed this sport years ago.

Gill has got to go, he is clearly not up to the job, and clear out AFL House while we're at it.

DS

 

[IanG]

Without a doubt SHocking is the worst footy operations boss since Ian Collins....

FTFY

 

[MD Jazz]

Listening to the radio, they said the umpire called touched off the boot. The ball certainly went through the air like it was touched.

Wrong. Again. Like you r wrong saying the ump applied the rule in Riewoldt marking attempts. The rule is fine, the ump got it wrong. The way Riewoldt used his boots is not likely to cause injury. So no free. No need for hocking to pretend he has a fans feel for the game. A false mea culpa.

 

[tigerlove]

They haven't changed the rule, just the interpretation. It was a ridiculous interpretation given the wording of the rule anyway.

I went looking on the website today, can't find the interpretations, where are they? Why can't we see them? Are they actually written down or is this all just a smokescreen for utter incompetence?

Yes sorry interpretation of the rule. Many of the AFL rules are extremely interpretive. As soon as you put in a rule, for example, 'likely to cause injury' you open up a whole world of grey area. That's why we always seem to have rule of the week where umpires across the board pay frees for something they haven't all year. The rule hasn't been changed, they've been told to change their interpretation.

If for example, rather than interpreting intent, impact, severity, likely to cause injury for a fist to the midriff of an opponent, a player was suspended for any contact with a fist then there's no grey interpretation and you watch how quickly players stop doing it.

 

[rensman]

Someone let us know if no 32 gets dropped pls

 

[lamb22]

I'd like the RFC to ask the Umpiring Department why Soldo wasn't paid the mark, why Jack was penalised when no real risk of damage existed, why the controlling umpire didn't pay the kicking in danger against Soldo despite being 10 metres away with good sight of the incident and why Caddy's tackle on Rioli was penalised.

I'd then ask if there was any common thread in these decisions and what methods might be used to remedy any deficiencies.