It’s the free that didn’t get paid... the block on Shai that three umpires missed, umpires that usually spot the gentle jumper hold or mild block.
I dont think there is a conscious bias or a conspiracy against us but I do believe that the outside noise affects the umpires. When they umpire in Adelaide or Perth and probably Melbourne the 50-50 calls more often go the way of the home team. The umpires know that we've been the dominant team over the past 4-5 years and they listen to the media and probably read forums - a good example is to see how many free kicks Joel Selwood gets now. The umpires are probably also prone to the tall poppy syndrome like all Australians. So I think we are the victims of this as a form of indirect (or unconscious) bias.
Eagles fans would have burnt the stadium to the ground before he got to take the shot anyway so we still would have lost.
Think I walked into BigMathy by mistake.
Agree. I’m saying we shouldn’t change our approach too much as it works when they umpire in finals mode
I would just like to respond to this issue about conspiracies etc that seems to get a run any time someone observes anything about the officiating or central administration.
The word conspiracy in this context means something along these lines:
an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
A conspiracy theory would be defined as something like this:
Conspiracy theory, an attempt to explain harmful events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group.
I have a few observations about this:
1. Conspiracies can and do happen all the time in lots of different ways, some more harmless, some more damaging.
2. Nobody on this thread as far as I know has actually created a conspiracy theory or seriously suggested that our free kick count is the result of a wilful conspiracy between the umpires and the “AFL” or other parties. I think we all accept that whilst entirely possible, it is extremely unlikely to be the case.
3. There are many ways bias can occur without being deliberate on the part of the umpires. Noise of affirmation, unconscious bias, selective conditioning, Razorblade Ray Chamberlian getting out of the wrong side of the gutter, to name a few.
4. The long time Umpires Advisor Hayden Kennedy recently and without detailed explanation suddenly resigned his employment at the AFL citing “exhaustion.” I have read unsupported suggestions he found Steve Hocking’s constant interventions stressful. It is likely Kennedy has a non-disclosure agreement with the AFL and for that reason we are unlikely to get a more detailed explanation for his sudden departure. There is absolutely nothing to suggest this could be related to the Richmond free kick count in any way, other than the timeline correlation, so we simply note it for possible future reference.
5. Whilst there is no suggestion of any deliberate conspiracy between parties within the AFL, a conspiracy would not be required for bias against an individual team to be effected. The reason for this is one single person is responsible for: being the biggest single influence in rule changes, being the final decision maker in relation to ALL MRO cases, and being the instigator of the constant interpretation changes we see. S Hocking, AFL General Manager, Football Operations. As I understand it he is, without conspiring with anybody else, in the position to influence umpires on a regular basis. I suppose an Umpire’s Advisor could also do this but he sits underneath Hocking in the structure, and so he certainly couldn’t do it to Hocking’s dissatisfaction, whereas as can be seen from point 4. above, the reverse may not necessarily be true.
Now of course we have no real way of knowing precisely what goes on between Hocking and the umpires. But if given carte blanche to investigate where any potential bias was coming from, I would be zeroing in on Hocking as my first port of call. If you were able to rule out bias(conscious or otherwise) on his part then I would think it was more likely to just be a combination of mostly random factors leading to Richmond’s 2021 all time significant free kick deficit.
I firmly believe that it's our game style that dictates the frees we get and we don't get and let me explain.
Sometimes it seems like this with the conspiracies that get thrown around.
So true but it always seems to be the home team crowd bias that causes the inconsistency, it's almost as if the umps are dead-set scared of the hometown ferals who constantly abuse them and sometimes even threaten them if a decision doesn't go their way which is very soft imo.
It has nothing to do with bias and more to do with human nature. When you're watching a game either at the ground or on TV how often can you pick out a free kick that should have been paid when a player doesn't add any theatrics to the incident? More often than not you won't, but when a player ducks into a tackle and throws his head back or throws his arms out because his opponent is close checking him, you notice it because it draws your eyes to it and it sticks in your mind.
How many of our blokes carry on to draw attention for free kicks? IMO there are 2, Bolton and Grimes who do so, remember Grimes being bagged for staging last year multiple times and Bolton invariably draws attention to when he is being infringed, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't, like Sunday night.
Whilst this is pretty cactus, I'd love to see the same stats for the other key forwards, especially guys like Tom Hawkins. Is it possible?
Umpires are taught to pay what they see and not guess. So if you have 2 players running towards and ball and one player is slower than the other but they can't see them being held back they aren't going to guess the player was held so they'll let it go. However if they see the jumper get stretched or they see arms around the waist or the player throws their arms out they'll pay the free kick. As I just said to T71, IMO our players have been instructed not to use theatrics to draw attention for free kicks, but instead just play the game until the whistle blows and whatever the decision is accept it and get ready for the next contest. And it's been somewhat successful too. While we've been the most penalised team the last 5 seasons we've also been the most successful so who cares if we're not winning free kick counts or even getting even number of free kicks. I'd much rather have the 4 points we get most weeks and the 3 flags that have come along with them.I disagree with your opening statement that is has nothing to do with bias.
I agree wholeheartedly with you this is what umpires do and it is probably what you and I would do if we umpired. Ie. we would collect cues from infringed players reactions to help us make decisions about free kicks. But in doing so we are very definitely showing a bias towards the over-reactors and against the players who simply play the ball until the whistle goes. This is obviously why some players do react in a way that either demonstrates or infers they have been infringed, because they know either this will bias the umpire in their favour, or stop him from being biased against them in his ruling.
So if we really want umpires to umpire completely correctly in this regard, we would teach them to either read the cues better or to ignore the cues coming from most player reactions entirely - unless the player is unconscious or dead of course, then you can probably safely read that as a cue.
If we wanted to go a step further we would simply say play the ball until the whistle goes and if you react in such a way that is deliberately designed solely to influence the umpire’s ruling then you are disqualified from getting a free kick - eg throwing arms back when tackled/******ed and not in possession. If you deliberately fake an infringement that did not take place, you get weeks.
So in short, this is a form of bias built into the way the game is adjudicated, and there are ways to stop it from happening. It is a deft manoeuvre by you to describe this form of bias as not bias but human nature. It is part of human nature to suffer from bias in our reasoning.
Whateley is at it also.
The only time the umpires umpire very well,why not do it now?????
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