The AFL, Umpiring department & Rules commitee

[Baz_hawk]

This has probably been done to death but now that the season is over I figure this discussion is warranted.

As to my understanding, umpires are part time employees and have no say in relatin to the rules commitee. Correct me if that assumption is incorrect. If the AFL is serious about running the best and fairest form the footy they need to really look at these 2 areas of the game. These 2 areas should be in constant discussion about rules, and club captians should be brought in also to establish a greater understanding of the rules and to get the thoughts of the players.

Some of the issues:

• Rules commitee decides to make changes to the rules, doesn't appear to consider what that'll add to the plate of the umpires on the field who have a lot of different aspects to watch. There are so many technical free kicks these days that by the letter of the law, probably 80% of contests have an infringement in them. Thankfully they are usually let go because of how ridiculous these rules are. Collaberation is needed
• Rule changes!! I understand the desire to improve the games flow and make it a greater spectacle but what some of these changes are just dumb. The advantage rule was tried and tested in the nab cup before it was implemented and the confusion it brought into the game made it pretty obvious that it just doesn't work. Yet some how they put it into the season. How does a player/umpire know what is advantage. A player may not hear the whistle and continue to play, handball as they hear the whistle and the ump has to decide if they heard the whistle first etc. The AFL has more grey areas than any other sport.
• Part time umpires, specifically central umpires is an issue. In a professional organisation the need for officials to have a full time role is a no brainer. Bring them in on rule commitees, send them to clubs to help players have a greater understanding of the rules and use them to help the afl thin out the grey areas

These issues being addressed I suspect would eliminate a lot of the hate supporters place upon the umps. They make mistakes like anyone else, no doubting that, but it's more a case of the rules and what they have to look for in every contest. Things like players running head down into other players, ducking, staging and so on don't help. The anti staging rule is non existant and the umpires have a split second to decide whether they staged or were genuinely pushed, hit high etc. A hard task if they only catch it in the corner of their eye or are blind sided from the initial contact.

Hope that made sense, I'd be surprised if something like this doesnt exist in another thread but the search function wouldnt load and I'm still a bit drunk. I have triple checked and think all spelling errors have been ironed out .

So, thoughts?


PS: What a waste of 10 minutes I could have spent sleeping