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Analysis Umpires

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Gethelred said:
I agree. That said, tonight is evidence that there is something desperately wrong with our game at present that one side can get it so right and the other so wrong.
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It all looked pretty samey-same to me. The "technicalities" which I'm sure the AFL will use to explain why one team got the calls and the other didn't are so overly complex and complicated that they do themselves in by them. And no, it's not just our game. It's happening every game in every round in every week.

Furthermore, while I understand that commentators are paid to air controversial opinions they are also paid to simplify the game to the casual fans watching from home. When there is such a high number of head scratchers that they cannot begin to explain it demonstrates a failed system rather than just one that has flaws.

Instead of adding technicalities on top of other obscure technicalities they need to simplify the game down. Scale it right back to the most basic rules and start again before these technicalities kill the game if they haven't already.
 
gandaal said:
Those without power, those who are losing either in life or in a competition, often resort to conspiracy theories to explain their position.

Umps make mistakes. They can have bad games, or even subconciously target certain players for extra attention (good or bad). But they don't target certain teams and its a waste of time suggesting they do.
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completely disagree.... tonight was disgusting. Blatant cheating... yes they paid us frees as well ones that were blatantly obvious.... we rarely get the rub of the green, we more often than not get crucified for ticky touch wood free kicks more than our opposition ...

I’ve got 21 years going to the footy week In and out and I can tell you now there is more than something in it... it comes from the top and it’s systemic against us.... we got penalised the most for the salary cap when others who were doing it got off lightly... fair dinkum Essendon got less for doing drugs! If that doesn’t tell you something.... tonight was a disgrace... was watching it with a mate who understands footy but no solid affiliation with any team...he was shocked.... we spent fifteen minutes in the second looking at frees not paid to us but paid to the saints for the same thing and I was calling it before it happened.... every time. He was too once I pointed it out. They changed momentum and the flow of the game in every instance. They cheated last week and told Betts it was a new rule and it nearly cost us the game.... conspiracy?

I’ll tell you the real truth .... no one likes us, they never have, go and read the comments section on the sun or any mass media publication on a bad news story about Carlton... more comments than any other article in the paper... every time. Everyone having a crack at Carlton... like that rich bloke that no one liked thats lost all his money and everyone’s loving it ...Go and do it test it for yourself. You think umpires don’t have this subconscious bias from their younger days? They forget? I said it in the game thread and it got lost.... they hate us it’s deep seated, we are the “multicultural“ successful club that’s fallen from its perch and they all want us to stay there... including head office cos it sells papers ... controversial I know but it’s the truth.
 
I’m not one to bag umpires but they were horribly inconsistent tonight.

But you know what, if the AFL had a decent leader, who supported umpires rather than telling them to do there job differently because a mate of his isn’t happy with certain aspects, then you get a mess. And that’s what we currently have.


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Wickzki said:
It all looked pretty samey-same to me. The "technicalities" which I'm sure the AFL will use to explain why one team got the calls and the other didn't are so overly complex and complicated that they do themselves in by them. And no, it's not just our game. It's happening every game in every round in every week.

Furthermore, while I understand that commentators are paid to air controversial opinions they are also paid to simplify the game to the casual fans watching from home. When there is such a high number of head scratchers that they cannot begin to explain it demonstrates a failed system rather than just one that has flaws.

Instead of adding technicalities on top of other obscure technicalities they need to simplify the game down. Scale it right back to the most basic rules and start again before these technicalities kill the game if they haven't already.
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pretty sure the genie is out of the bottle there........
 
SurreyBlue said:
It’s no coincidence, that free kicks evened out or more importantly, where paid to us in the second half, when the game was lost, and yet where missed when the game was alive.
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It’s telling that at one stage in the second or third quarter (I reckon the third), Murph grabed the ball and tossed it right at the umpires midriff and threw his arms in the air to complain because a ball up was called rather than a free kick he thought we should Have received. A second after the ball up, the same umpire blows his whistle and calls a free kick to Carlton. I don’t know what the umpire saw that warranted a free kick to us but it wasn’t anything he was calling all night until that point. The slightest bit of complaining and the umpires become flustered.

I genuinely don’t know if we will ever get to a point where it feels like the umpires are adjudicating our games fairly. We’re getting consistently screwed over. Someone tell the league that the salary cap breaches were 17 years ago, time to officiate our games fairly.
 
The umps had clearly been told at half time to look for infringements against Cripps, he got absolutely nothing in the first half despite being scragged at every stoppage. This changed in the 3rd quarter he got 2 or 3 'softish' kicks early and its no co-incidence he then was able to work his way into the game.

It was not the reason we lost the game, we were out played by a slicker, hungrier side that was well coached however the 50/50 calls they got in the first half where nothing seem to come to us was astonishing. The 50m against Harry OMG
 
Worst umpiring I have seen so far this year.
I knew this would happen after Clarko said his piece.

“Rule of the week” Eddie everywhere described it as...

If we were first to the ball the decisions would have been for us not against us


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BeijingBlue said:
I wonder how many on this forum have actually umpired the game at any level? A thankless task made all the more difficult given the constant rule changes. Rather than moan, volunteer to umpire some games, it would be good for your soul and your health, not mention broadening the mind.
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20+ years as a field umpire at suburban level, stopped 4 years ago after family life became too hectic but still look at every contest like I am umpiring..
 

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My take is that the AFL with their tinkering have ruined the game. They have made the game so hard to umpire. Rather than reward the player prepared to go for the ball it is now all about the tackler, thereby making it so hard to decide an outcome. I lost count as to how many times a player with the ball was tackled, monstered in the back and then a ball up. Pay the free kick and watch the game open up. Yes, there were some howlers last night and the holding free kicks off the ball are a blight on the game. This should be policed more. If in a contest a player has his back to the ball blocking another player, there are two other umpires on the ground to police that.
 
There's no anti-Carlton AFL conspiracy. It's utterly ridiculous to think so, and up there with 5G towers controlling your mind or lizard people running the world as far as plausibility goes.

But, there are some serious issues with consistency in umpiring and the way the laws of the game are both written and applied on game-day. There's also a significant possibility that internal bias by umpires plays a part in 50/50 calls going one way or the other; however, that's an entirely different issue that is both expected and extremely difficult to overcome.

Just for the sake of it being interesting, have a listen to this podcast about umpire bias in the NBA:

Against the Rules | Pushkin Industries

Michael Lewis takes a searing look at what's happened to fairness in his chart-topping podcast Against the Rules.
atrpodcast.com atrpodcast.com

Something worth noting from that podcast - there was an in-depth study done on referee bias in the NBA which they then used to address issues. The AFL needs to invest heavily in doing something similar. They may find that it's simply impossible to umpire with 100% accuracy and we then have to promote the game as a wacky life-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates metaphor, or they might be able to get to the root of problems and address them.
 
It is a fast and complicated game these days. Try explaining modern footy to someome new to the game.
If I watch games and support other teams (for example if a mate supports another team and your with them), I dont see the consistent inconsistencies that carlton seem to endure. And it will be all season.
It is not just that, it is player reports as well. The carnage inflicted upon our blokes injury wise and not even receiving frees.
The only other team anything like Ive seen with Carltons rough end of the stick would be the NFL Raiders.
There is a similar push for NFL refs to be fulltime as well.
Im not sure if thats the answer but there needs to be a standards group.
The only way to objectively see if there is a bias in the AFL would be to analyse ever free over the season for and against to make a quantifiable judgement.
Going back to the NFL, whatever Belicheck (patriots)has done in this area would be worth looking into.
 
Gethelred said:
Bump...
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We were second to the ball for most of the night (apart from a stint in the 3rd qtr) and thoroughly outplayed, decisions are not going to go your way when that happens. Some holding the ball decisions do seem consistent but the umps are human and have a split second to interpret a rule which is very hard to judge.
 

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Stig O'Hara said:
Umpires don’t kick goals.
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I'd describe their influence more like a golfing handicap, or like the wind's influence over a footy game.

You still have to play well, but a 5 goal wind in one direction that vanishes after quarter time can certainly alter the course of a game.
 
Sinjin Smith said:
We were second to the ball for most of the night (apart from a stint in the 3rd qtr) and thoroughly outplayed, decisions are not going to go your way when that happens. Some holding the ball decisions do seem consistent but the umps are human and have a split second to interpret a rule which is very hard to judge.
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I despise this explanation for umpiring. It's a football manifestation of the 'hot hand' fallacy, and it's yet another thing spread by a compliant media to make the more dominant sides feel good and the losing sides feel worse.
 
Gethelred said:
I despise this explanation for umpiring. It's a football manifestation of the 'hot hand' fallacy, and it's yet another thing spread by a compliant media to make the more dominant sides feel good and the losing sides feel worse.
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Not sure about the compliant media stuff but (just my opinion) last night we couldn't get near it in the first half, Saints sucked in Cripps and a few others which incurred mistakes and then the pressure builds on the team out there to make more mistakes, wrong decisions etc. For three qtrs against Geelong we were flying and no doubt Geelong supporters where holding a fair bit of accountability to the umpires.
 
Sinjin Smith said:
Not sure about the compliant media stuff but (just my opinion) last night we couldn't get near it in the first half, Saints sucked in Cripps and a few others which incurred mistakes and then the pressure builds on the team out there to make more mistakes, wrong decisions etc. For three qtrs against Geelong we were flying and no doubt Geelong supporters where holding a fair bit of accountability to the umpires.
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Look, I agree with you when you say that we were rubbish last night. I bumped this thread because it was a conversation topic that has arisen out of last night's game, and because I thought that while the performance from our team was enough to lose us the game by ourselves, St Kilda didn't need the help either.

I don't know how to solve this problem. My solutions rest on simplifying the rules and paying every single one, retargetting the umpiring culture towards custodianship of the game, and suspending players who play for frees on the regular.

I watch most of the games, and the first 3 rounds were decent enough. There's only one difference this week; one of the head coaches had a crack at them.
 
Gethelred said:
Look, I agree with you when you say that we were rubbish last night. I bumped this thread because it was a conversation topic that has arisen out of last night's game, and because I thought that while the performance from our team was enough to lose us the game by ourselves, St Kilda didn't need the help either.

I don't know how to solve this problem. My solutions rest on simplifying the rules and paying every single one, retargetting the umpiring culture towards custodianship of the game, and suspending players who play for frees on the regular.

I watch most of the games, and the first 3 rounds were decent enough. There's only one difference this week; one of the head coaches had a crack at them.
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Got my vote!!!!!!!!!!
 
Gethelred said:
Look, I agree with you when you say that we were rubbish last night. I bumped this thread because it was a conversation topic that has arisen out of last night's game, and because I thought that while the performance from our team was enough to lose us the game by ourselves, St Kilda didn't need the help either.

I don't know how to solve this problem. My solutions rest on simplifying the rules and paying every single one, retargetting the umpiring culture towards custodianship of the game, and suspending players who play for frees on the regular.

I watch most of the games, and the first 3 rounds were decent enough. There's only one difference this week; one of the head coaches had a crack at them.
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"There's only one difference this week; one of the head coaches had a crack at them."

I think if umpires are meant to be neutral it sets a very bad tone from the top when one or two (successful) coaches have a very Public crack at the Umpires and not only are the Umpires not supported, and the coaches not penalised or disputed by the AFL, but the Head of the AFL actually supports these two coaches by changing the rules interpretation to meet their expectations.

Shows just who is running the game and makes sure the refs do what is required to make sure those two Coaches/AFL Boss are satisfied.

Really poor Governance and clearly no independence for the Refs to self regulate/censure. If they want to get paid (games) then they are publicly being told to keep Clarko happy.

Agree the rules need to be simpler and the ambiguity removed. Far too many grey areas at the moment.
 

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