Do you seriously think that that is the motivation for AFL umpires? And the reason why they gesticulate (inb4zondors) the way they do?
I understand the need to signal. Do I think that at AFL level they accentuate the signalling because of the stage they are on? 100% I do.
Do you honestly reckon you could do a better job? Honestly?
Yep they could. It is the system that is broken and there is little incentive for them to get better. The AFL will change rules mid season its no wonder that there is difference in interpretation. They should be paid more and made more accountable for bad decisions.
Where do you think AFL umpires come from?
Do you actually believe that the game at VFL level is the same as the game at AFL level?
Do you not see that, logically, your gripes with AFL umpires stem from the system they are in rather than the umpires themselves?
Pretty fair point but....
And therefore criticising the umpires themselves (and a round dedicated to acknowledging how important they are to our game) is kinda silly?
Your argument falls down at Razor Ray. He umpires like someone who has little feel for the game, who gets caught spectating rather than umpiring.
Here is an example of how umpiring could get better;
There is no mechanism for stopping an umpire from bouncing the ball in the middle. Explain to me why there are no metrics around which umpires can bounce and which cannot. Every game is telecast so someone could review every center bounce and if a particular umpire consistently bounces the ball beyond a threshold of degrees off 90 it could be detected and then remediated or stopped and the ball thrown up.
and the game wins because more center bounces are quality rather than being marginally inside the bounds of being called back.