Urgent umpiring overhaul needed.

[carlton2dabone]

The umpires are directly responsible for causing the booing today.

If AFL don’t fix it, one day a riot will break out after a game and it will all be the AFLs fault.

 

[Burtman]

This is hilarious the umpiring today was 10 times better than what we copped against the dogs this year. Essendon supporters would of burnt down the g if They copped that shit

 

[carlton2dabone]

This is the problem with “letting the game go”.

The umpires did this today and it was bad.

You know how you can fix that easily?

Pay the obvious holding the ball free kicks that every player on the field stopped for because they are so obvious..

And don’t pay the shitty tiggy decisions where Baguely initiated the jumper holding that he got a free for or the tipp blatant throw.

Why do they pay 50/50 decisions yet let the most obvious ones go? Lol

 

[its free real estate]

You know how you can fix that easily?

Pay the obvious holding the ball free kicks that every player on the field stopped for because they are so obvious..

And don’t pay the shitty tiggy decisions where Baguely initiated the jumper holding that he got a free for or the tipp blatant throw.

Why do they pay 50/50 decisions yet let the most obvious ones go? Lol

Completely agree.

 

[benneth]

Funny enough, nobody has managed it yet in 150 years of trying.

Im not saying it can be umpired perfectly 100% of the time, i dont think anyones asking that, it's inherently hard to unpire, but surely there's room for improvement.

I dont think its an unsolvable problem, i just dont think its an AFL priority.

 

[Sully111]

Agreed. Upiring just not good enough

 

[Rustin Cohle]

When you’ve got every player on the field stopping for imaginary whistles you know you’ve got a problem. Umpires should be embarrassed with that performance

 

[Aussie Assault]

Full time umpires probably won't happen, they have full time jobs, pretty sure one is a lawyer.

How do the AFL afford to pay him/her enough to give up their full time job which probably already pays top dollar.

You pay those that want a full time umpiring gig and tell the lawyer to enjoy their law career. Simples?

For what it's worth umpiring didn't cost Dons today's game. It was shambolic both ways but umpiring decisions are never the reason to lose a game of footy.

 

[doppleganger]

Still in disbelief over that final minute. How can the same umpire ignore a blatant holding the ball against Collingwood...only to blow his whistle against Essendon 1 second later. Utterly disgraceful.

It wasn’t holding the ball according to the rule as it is presently written.

Stephenson had no prior opportunity, as he was tackled immediately...all he had to do was make an attempt to dispose of the ball, and he did that with his attempted kick.

Yes it was a push in the back, but that’s actually irrelevant.

The umpire got it right, it was a push in the back.

I would have accepted it had the umpire ignored both indiscretions, as they were equally obvious.

That is ridiculous. They weren’t equally obvious at all.

They had a contentious interpretation that Stephenson didn’t have prior opportunity and did indeed make an attempt = play on

The other was a blatant in the back

If you want umpires to only pay the obvious ones that is exactly what you want.

Bombers may not have won, but they were robbed of that final chance to steal a famous win.

Bombers were gifted a goal to Baguely in Q4 that wasn’t there.

They cost themselves any chance to win with their rubbish turn overs.

 

[Aussie Assault]

The umpires are directly responsible for causing the booing today.

If AFL don’t fix it, one day a riot will break out after a game and it will all be the AFLs fault.

Haha no. It'll be the people participating in the riot's fault. Taking responsibility for your own actions is a hard thing to do these days..

 

[Furn2]

The problem is the AFL back them no matter how wrong they get it, so no one including the umps know what's going on.

 

[juss]

Completely agree the standard of umpiring across the whole season has been appalling in most games.

Pick a bunch of random local umpires and you wouldnt have any worse standard of officiating.

The rules committee and umpiring departments need a complete overhaul, they are damaging the enjoyment of the game and the game itself.

 

[damochandler]

When players are stopping knowing it’s holding the ball and the umpire doesn’t blow blow his whistle. Yeah there is a problem and it wasn’t the first time it’s happened this year

 

[gcsunsfc]

There were mistakes today
The GC-Carlton game was 10 x worse.
This just happened on the big stage so gets some airplay.

 

[JDavey]

Funny that everyone agrees the umpiring was awful and almost every fan can name a game this year where their team played in similarly poor conditions.

Just goes to show how bad the standard has been this year. Hate that we let players incorrectly dispose of or drop the ball and the AFL is okay with that as long as play keeps moving.

 

[Vankri]

The standards have been horrible this year.

Aussie rules is very difficult to umpire. Intense game full of contests.

The main problem is that the rule book is very convoluted and very open to interpretation.

As en example from today’s game people can’t agree on what is ‘prior opportunity’, who free kicks should go to in the Baguley/Langdon type of contests, at what point is a head high contact milked etc. And that’s just picking a few. Even commentators constantly debate it amongst each other and can’t agree.

Way too many grey areas and it doesn’t help when the AFL acts so reactionary and changes the rules or adds some all the time.

Case in point, the contact below the knee rule. Everyone knows why it’s been brought in but if you really strictly applied it there would be 10-15 of them whistled a game particularly within packs.

The rules need simplifying but it’s a huge body of work for the AFL to undertake as the result is likely to be a radical overhaul of some rules and there will be a big period of backlash and transition.

Or they can just continue tweaking it every year but the interpretations will never be consistent and people will continue to be confused.

 

[Shane Heard]

I counted 12 blatant throwing/tossing the ball moments today and probably missed a few more.

Those useless umpires just let em go.

It’s a disgrace.

 

[Baird]

Lol, what do you want to happen? Sack all the umpires and replace them with new ones?

AFL is literally the hardest sport on earth to officiate, it's never going to be perfect

 

[damochandler]

Lol, what do you want to happen? Sack all the umpires and replace them with new ones?

A L is literally the hardest sport on earth to officiate, it's never going to be perfect

The afl have made it the hardest sport to officiate. They created this mess

 

[NakedDeadGuy]

Bombres could feel very hard done by - as usual an insipid, inconsistent generally unprofessional display by the maggots for the umpteenth time, which I reckon did cost them the game.

What can be done? Nobody denies its a bloody difficult game to adjudicate, I reckon the answer is complicated.

Tweak the rules - allow disposal by any method. The number of "illegal" throws that are not paid EVERY SINGLE MATCH v the couple that are actually picked up - these can, and have been game changing. Allow throwing, allow dropping the ball - that way the maggots can't miss potential game changing illegal disposal.

While not a thing today, the deliberate rule - either scrap it, or make it last touch. Take away the adjudication from it, inconsistently applied and the maggots seem to love the theatrics while everyone waits for their decision.

With disposal by any means legal, that gets rid of the holding the ball rule - another which seems to be applied differently to defensive players v attacking players in the goal square. An indiscretion should be paid wherever it occurs on the field, we all know this isn't the case.

I'm drunk, I had no stake in today's game, but after watching it just thought it bloody stinks. I just wish they would fix it.

 

[doppleganger]

When players are stopping knowing it’s holding the ball and the umpire doesn’t blow blow his whistle. Yeah there is a problem and it wasn’t the first time it’s happened this year

Yeah was weird, crowd noise wouldn’t have helped. But players should always play to the whistle, if there was none you keep playing.

And anyway those two instances had absolutely no impact on the outcome of the game whatsoever.

 

[Ocker]

I'm happy saying that we got the rub of the green this week, however, it's basically that shit against us every other week!

Give us a spell mate...pies get the rub every week.

Ed must have some good pictures.

 

[Ocker]

It’s going to get a lot worse with Hocking wanting to give goal umpires a say in decisions.

They have a hard enough time deciding on goals FFS

 

[Sterge]

The best part is the afls reason for umpires not being full time is that some of them earn 250k in their real jobs and we would lose them if they went full time....

I'm not even joking either.

 

[deck]

I don't think it was as bad as the commentators made out, they struggle to know the rules half the time

A game the other week I can't remember the exact incident but the commentators were adamant the umpire got it wrong. It was clearly the right decision under the rules but they carried on like it was the worst decision of all time.