Has the AFL gotten too hard to umpire?

[HairyO]

The deliberate out of bounds rule gets me. The ones where it’s clear that it’s a miskick by the player (such as Heppell’s last night) should never be called deliberate.

This one as well drove me insane, what’s a defender meant to do in this situation?

That is a ******* horrible free kick.

But the umpires rewarded Sydney every chance they could.

 

[Kyptastic]

In all three games so far this round the home side has had around double the free kicks of the visitors

 

[Mitchell Madness]

No. It's actually pretty easy to umpire.
The problem is the main league has pushed too far into entertainment

 

[theyellowsash]

Not too hard to see when a player is a meter out of bounds.

The game isn't hard to umpire, we just dont have the quality of umpires. I put this down to them being part time. They must be full time and well paid. It needs to be a legit career path with time for the umpires to work on both fitness and practise decision making.

 

[Ho K]

With the new rule about players on the mark not being allowed to move sideways until the umpire call play on, why don't the players ask the umpires where the mark is and then step a couple of feet back from it so they can move sideways?

 

[ManInWhite]

With the new rule about players on the mark not being allowed to move sideways until the umpire call play on, why don't the players ask the umpires where the mark is and then step a couple of feet back from it so they can move sideways?

You have to go back 5m before you can move side to side - not a few feet.

The game hasn't become impossible to umpire - but it has become impossible to do it well. Too much inconsistency or instances where there is 1 rule but with 5 exceptions. Even if they didn't muck around with rule changes each year it would be hard enough. I've actually given away umpiring senior footy this year because it's too confusing for everyone to understand and all that happens is you get abused.

Regards making umpires full time - we've covered it elsewhere but it won't work. There's nothing extra that you get them doing making it full time work. They already are physically maxed out from running 6 days a week. Rules and analysis are already covered to an nth degree. All they'll end up doing is running school clinics to fit their day in and that won't assist performances on ground. Plus - what do you do in the off season? No job security either for someone who is thinking about putting a professional career on hold to only be culled from the list after 2 seasons. Players get cut from lists regularly and just go to another team. Umpires can't do that.

As for those suggesting more umpires on the ground? Don't forget that all these absurd rule changes filter down to local footy level and whilst the AFL might be able to scrounge numbers to put 4 on the field, local leagues are hard pushed finding 1 umpire to fill a game. I was doing 3 or 4 games a weekend until this year when I said enough is enough.