No high frees when player with the ball is responsible for the high contact

jatz14

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The intent is great, the execution may be significantly more difficult.
I have no problem with the intent, its always execution that is the problem, that and the law of unintended consequences (as in, there always are some).

I already have a problem with the lowering the head rule. There have been cases of players picking the ball up, looking up, seeing they are about to have their faces smashed, instinctively protecting themselves with a head duck, and its play on? When the head duck did not cause the high contact, it was already going to be high, they just didn't want a fractured cheekbone or nose.

I am really worried this rule is going to make players a lot less safe in its implementation, even though the intent is the opposite.
 

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Pessimistic

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If the conact is not huge, and the player has contibuted, it is play on. and if the player goes into a hedgehog shape around the ball. Its a free kick against, HTB.

They arent paying that for some reason though, so if a player ducks, he is still avoiding a HTB free against
 

The Dodger

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This needed a rule? I agree with others that the player with the ball should be able to manoeuvre however he likes with the ball its up to the tacklers to avoid breaking the rules.

When you look at most of the examples its a shit tackle attempt. The player has been wrong footed by a change of direction (note when nearly all players change direction in traffic their centre of gravity is lowered) and in desperation throws an arm out to stop the player getting by them at about shoulder height. Its not a legitimate tackle they over committed got beaten and do something that is stupid. And some players have gotten very good at using that dangling arm to get themselves a kick.

For what it is worth I hate the arm raising etc I think it is ugly but what shits me about this talk is the way lazy, beaten tacklers are allowed in desperation to apparently do what ever they can to stop the guy with the ball that has wrong footed...its also ugly shit footy.

And please dont say "What is a tackler supposed to do in that situation?" Well they can do what ever they want but if they go high there should be a free kick called. This has also risen due to the need of tacklers today to pin the arms to stop the quick handball. So you need to be strong enough to do that. Attempting to do that but the player with the ball being strong enough to get your tackle to slip high is your fault.

Putting the above aside its also a shit rule that will most likely be interpreted/executed poorly. Just like the diving in at peoples leg rule which happens 5- 10 times a game and gets called once every three or so games at random.
 

Ricky Vaughn

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Afl brings in a rule specifically for selwood.. doesnt enforce. #logic
I remember 3 instances that involved Selwood, and I reckon they got each decision wrong.

Twice he contributed to the tackle going high, both times it was a free. Once he just got closelined, no free.
Played on each time though, so no it didn't matter either way, but they'd want to sort it out.
 

romeohwho

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I suspect that watching this in real time many people called it a free kick. Umps included. It's a very difficult sport to umpire because of the nature of interpretation and it's getting harder not easier. Unfortunately on BF and at the game, a lot of time is spent complaining about the umps and it's really becoming tedious. Game day threads on the main board are a waste of time these days-all about the umps, not the play. At the ground the refrain of 'ball' which used to be lots of fun has become so ubiquitous and so often called for incorrectly, that it's annying now. The reality is we just have to accept there will be contentious decisions. So can we stop sooking everyone.
 

JoondalupJ

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I suspect that watching this in real time many people called it a free kick. Umps included. It's a very difficult sport to umpire because of the nature of interpretation and it's getting harder not easier. Unfortunately on BF and at the game, a lot of time is spent complaining about the umps and it's really becoming tedious. Game day threads on the main board are a waste of time these days-all about the umps, not the play. At the ground the refrain of 'ball' which used to be lots of fun has become so ubiquitous and so often called for incorrectly, that it's annying now. The reality is we just have to accept there will be contentious decisions. So can we stop sooking everyone.
What a silly comment we can stop sooking. The rules have been compromised for several years now and the umpires are trained strictly to follow the letter of the law to the point of ridiculousness. I'll give examples of that just in a few areas of free kick awarding , WHAT these frees are, is not the question , the question is WHY.
So here's just a few, in the heat OF PLAY NEAR THE BOUNDARY a player has a ball bounce of his shin by pure accident , and instead of a throw in he gets a free against him (out on the full) it happens quite a lot? Point , there is no reason for a free kick in an instance like that.Other issues free kicks for incidental touching by accident of a shoulder, not so bad today but before it was, when even a finger above the shoulder got a free. The hands in the back rule is confusing, the punching the arms of an opponent that rule has totally been turned around because you used to be told punch the arm if he's in front or too tall. But even that rule is now a toss up as to how the umpire calls it. In the back , what is it? When some players tackle and the momentum leaves them on top of a player on the ground they get in the back????? OR THE POOR MONGREL ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PACK GETS CAUGHT FOR HOLDING?? ha ha !The shoulder drop and knee drop, the free for that is totally wrong, but Shueys episode was a free because all the action was round the neck, that's actually a rule ????? when its blatant it is disgraceful, Shueys was a free kick , sorry Port , but Shuey facing away from the tackle was scragged high, free kick whether shoulder dropped or not, and bulldust about slow motion film and normal speed replay is just that , bulldust, umpires are not machines! There are stacks and stacks of rules that have been tampered with re interpreted , and made watching football a frustration sometimes instead of a pleasure, and you come out with a nonsense that it is something we have to accept. Well my friend I don't accept garbage , never have and never will, and every weekend after the footy people whinge about decisions, and I said years ago on here (BF) that games will get decided on things that we see EVERY WEEK in every game.
Paddy Ryder 's hand up ruck nomination then a free, cost Port a goal, well he actually did put his hand up , the umpire never saw it.
So in the strictness of the rule he had infringed, even though on TV last night we see Sandilands not nominate earlier in this year, and the umpire calling play on, that rule has that WHY?????? factor to it.
To stop a third man up, so what?????? Isn't that competition, isn't that what football is about.
The AFL seem hell bent on stopping certain tactics that make it hard for opposing teams , that called competing, there are some styles of tactic like Sydney lock down rugby which make packs form and make our game look horrible , its still a tactic, but the extent tactics go to ,should be calmed a little but not to the detriment of the game itself, where as said in the past , will create an umpire created win or loss, and the ump is trying to read this complicated mess of rules the AFL (WHO DOES NOT OWN THIS GAME!!!!) has made and make a decision in a split second on GREY RULES, that the fans can barely understand.
The AFL at the same time , have introduced two new teams that have cost the competition a dropped level of standard, that was threatened even with 16 teams only, now the dilution sees some low standard games, and some who maybe shouldn't be playing at Senior AFL level.Dilution.
So my friend if you bother reading this, the teams and the umpires cannot be blamed, and the people who supply the money we the punters who do the buying, DO NOT HAVE TO STAND BACK AND ACCEPT NONSENSE FROM AFL RULES!
We have a game now wide open to gambling and cheating, because of mis perception or misunderstanding or "calling what ever you want to call " types umpiring, the AFL have turned our sport into something it is not meant to be.
When you spend post match week arguing about bloody free kicks winning and losing games, then maybe we should have all gotten really really angry when the AFL and bloody McGlaghlan a few years back started pissing around with the rules of the best game in the world.
So Romeowho what do you reckon , just lay back and take it, til the game is destroyed! And the sycophants rule the sport on TV.
AFL needs to be over hauled completely , and our Dear Leader Gil needs to pee off.
 

Adelaide Hawk

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I don't know why people manage to confuse these things, Shuey didn't duck but he did force the arm over his shoulder. It should have been holding the ball
Jordan Lewis said that at the beginning of the season, there was an AFL directive stating precisely if the initial contact was below the shoulder and it ends up being above the shoulder, it is not deemed a high tackle. Apparently it came about following a controversial call in the preliminary final between Bulldogs and GWS in 2016.

Now, if the umpire knew that, and he would have, he's made an error in judgement. He's obviously not seen the initial contact. Controversial, yes, but it's all part of the rich tapestry that is football. Nothing's fair in football, different clubs receiving advantages over others, etc, so how can we expect the umpiring to be spot on?

A Port supporter mate of mine got it into perspective when he said, "Yeah, it possibly cost us the game, but we weren't going much further in the finals anyway". He also added how many chances Port had to seal the game and didn't take them. I've always found it odd, after all the mistakes players make, that we point at one decision at the end of the game and say it cost us the match.
 

Topkent

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Jordan Lewis said that at the beginning of the season, there was an AFL directive stating precisely if the initial contact was below the shoulder and it ends up being above the shoulder, it is not deemed a high tackle. Apparently it came about following a controversial call in the preliminary final between Bulldogs and GWS in 2016.

Now, if the umpire knew that, and he would have, he's made an error in judgement. He's obviously not seen the initial contact. Controversial, yes, but it's all part of the rich tapestry that is football. Nothing's fair in football, different clubs receiving advantages over others, etc, so how can we expect the umpiring to be spot on?

A Port supporter mate of mine got it into perspective when he said, "Yeah, it possibly cost us the game, but we weren't going much further in the finals anyway". He also added how many chances Port had to seal the game and didn't take them. I've always found it odd, after all the mistakes players make, that we point at one decision at the end of the game and say it cost us the match.
Because even if Dixon or Boak kick their goals eagles could still have won 5 clearances in a row and kicked 5 goals. But that decision was literally the game changer.
 

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deeps

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Would be interesting to know which umpire gave the free kick. One seems to be in a decent position to see the incident, but the fact the whistle was a bit late says to me that it was possibly another umpire that called it?



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jatz14

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Just a thought to see what people think. The initial contact is upper shoulder, and it rides up to his neck, but that is at the start of the tackle. He then not only continues with the tackle, but does so with force, basically slinging Shuey to the ground by his neck.

Now, for the player with the ball charging head down, contact to the head is play on, however, the player making contact is still expected to exercise care. If he makes a deliberate forceful bump to the head, it's still a free. Otherwise the rule effectively gives permission to knock out players running head first.

Could the Shuey interpretation be that the initial contact is play on, but that the aggressive way the tackle continued constituted the high contact?

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ydraw

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Could the Shuey interpretation be that the initial contact is play on, but that the aggressive way the tackle continued constituted the high contact?
It's not really the interpretation, the issue was that the initial contact was so fleeting that the umpire wouldn't have seen it. The initial contact was around the bicep but immediately slipped high so it looked like a bona fide high tackle in real time.

If the arm had have come up a fraction of a second later so the umpire could have seen where the tackle began then it would have been play on.
 

telsor

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If the conact is not huge, and the player has contibuted, it is play on. and if the player goes into a hedgehog shape around the ball. Its a free kick against, HTB.

They arent paying that for some reason though, so if a player ducks, he is still avoiding a HTB free against
Ideally, this would be how it is, but for OH&S reasons, they had to toughen up on contact to the head, so the 'hugeness' of the contact became 'any contact.

If they're going to that level to protect the head, then they also have to stop encouraging people to get deliberately hit in the head in order to get a free kick.
 

eaglespremiers

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Would be interesting to know which umpire gave the free kick. One seems to be in a decent position to see the incident, but the fact the whistle was a bit late says to me that it was possibly another umpire that called it?
The two umpires with proper views of the play were both going to call the free.
The third umpire who was obscured from the play didn't call it.

"Another umpire close to the incident has told the AFL umpiring department he would have made the same decision."

http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/po...ain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Sport_Desktop
 
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sprockets

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Just a thought to see what people think. The initial contact is upper shoulder, and it rides up to his neck, but that is at the start of the tackle. He then not only continues with the tackle, but does so with force, basically slinging Shuey to the ground by his neck.

Now, for the player with the ball charging head down, contact to the head is play on, however, the player making contact is still expected to exercise care. If he makes a deliberate forceful bump to the head, it's still a free. Otherwise the rule effectively gives permission to knock out players running head first.

Could the Shuey interpretation be that the initial contact is play on, but that the aggressive way the tackle continued constituted the high contact?

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What? Open your other eye and you won't see anything like you describe. It should have been play on.
 

sr36

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Just a thought to see what people think. The initial contact is upper shoulder, and it rides up to his neck, but that is at the start of the tackle. He then not only continues with the tackle, but does so with force, basically slinging Shuey to the ground by his neck.

Now, for the player with the ball charging head down, contact to the head is play on, however, the player making contact is still expected to exercise care. If he makes a deliberate forceful bump to the head, it's still a free. Otherwise the rule effectively gives permission to knock out players running head first.

Could the Shuey interpretation be that the initial contact is play on, but that the aggressive way the tackle continued constituted the high contact?

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Yeah it's an interesting one, traditionally when players tackled around the hips and you broke tackles by pushing them down, you used to get the free when the broken tackle ended in a trip.
 

CakeEater

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Would be interesting to know which umpire gave the free kick. One seems to be in a decent position to see the incident, but the fact the whistle was a bit late says to me that it was possibly another umpire that called it?



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It was the non controlling umpire, hence the late whistle- i.e it wasnt the ump in control of the boundary throw in.
 

TBoyleSuperstar

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The two umpires with proper views of the play were both going to call the free.
The third umpire who was obscured from the play didn't call it.

"Another umpire close to the incident has told the AFL umpiring department he would have made the same decision."

http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/po...ain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Sport_Desktop

Just means they were both wrong.

Initial tackle was fine, Shuey lifts the arm to contribute to the high contact. Thus, he should have not received the free. Disappointing the game ended like that, but sadly it happens. The AFL ticking it off makes the look even stupider in my opinion, but it is what it is. That being said, at the end of the day, Shuey still had to kick the goal , and like we saw with Isaac Smith last year, not always easy to do. Class finish from Shuey . He misses, no one really cares about the free.
 

TBoyleSuperstar

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Yeah it's an interesting one, traditionally when players tackled around the hips and you broke tackles by pushing them down, you used to get the free when the broken tackle ended in a trip.
I actually thought about this on the weekend, and how they are essentially treated different. I guess it's cause there is a prevalence of players being 'legged' that it not an issue.
 

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Just means they were both wrong.

Initial tackle was fine, Shuey lifts the arm to contribute to the high contact. Thus, he should have not received the free. Disappointing the game ended like that, but sadly it happens. The AFL ticking it off makes the look even stupider in my opinion, but it is what it is. That being said, at the end of the day, Shuey still had to kick the goal , and like we saw with Isaac Smith last year, not always easy to do. Class finish from Shuey . He misses, no one really cares about the free.
Not saying they weren't.
But it is no surprise that it was paid in real time as it appeared to be a tackle that was high simultaneously.
It is only in slow motion that we see Shuey's actions. No mere mortal has the ability to adjudicate an instantaneous action.
 
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The umpires have a lot of explaining to do. During the Cats V Tigers Joel Selwood was a total embarrassment to the game. Every single tackle he flaps his arms like an aggressive chicken.

....and still gets given the free kicks. Don't the umpires see the stats on this guy? Don't they read the rules?
 
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The umpires have a lot of explaining to do. During the Cats V Tigers Joel Selwood was a total embarrassment to the game. Every single tackle he flaps his arms like an aggressive chicken.

....and still gets given the free kicks. Don't the umpires see the stats on this guy? Don't they read the rules?
He got 2 Friday night
They actually did it very well Friday night, they basically didn't reward it and a couple of times they pinged him HTB
 
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