The problem with HTB comes when one side is regulated for it differently than the other. The biggest issue that Richmond have with umpiring is the HTB rule. It seems to take so much for us to get a HTB paid for us whereas we get pinged for it easily.
For example, Prestia barely gets an opportunity to dispose of the ball and gets pinged for HTB after being tackled. You then watch an opposition player in the same match run after collecting the ball, go down to the ground in a tackle and then drop the ball. The umpire calls play on.
This is what we saw today as well. All of a sudden they stopped paying HTB for Essendon even though some of them were pretty clear. I just don’t understand this rule. Maybe they need to introduce objective measures in measuring prior opportunity such as the seconds a player had to dispose of the ball before being tackled. Either way, whatever we have in place now is inconsistent. There are many stakeholders of this game extremely discontent with the standard of umpiring and it is not entirely the umpires’ fault because they are obviously being directed by someone else.