Urgent umpiring overhaul needed.

Sep 11, 2008
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He was grabbed by the arm, which is effectively a perfect tackle. (Umpires generally are giving far too much leeway to the tackled player in this situation. Often the player hugs the ball into the tackler and a bounce is called. A common refrain is ‘How was he supposed to get rid of it?’ That’s not the tackler’s problem. Get it onto your boot or get pinged.)

Stephenson tries to run a few steps and is taken to ground and immobilised. That is holding the ball right there. He belatedly rolls over and tries to throw it upwards onto his boot; I don’t care whether his boot nicked the ball or not, this is incorrect disposal.

Yes it was a good tackle but I don't think he tries to run a few steps, I think that was all part of the tackling action bringing him to ground and trying to keep balance during that process. The rules say you are given a chance to dispose and he did actually dispose. If you threw the ball onto your foot like that in the goal square whilst on the ground and it nicks your foot and goes through then it's a goal, it counts as a kick.

17.6 HOLDING THE BALL
17.6.1 Spirit and Intention
The Player who has Possession of the Football will be provided an opportunity to dispose of the football before rewarding an opponent for a Legal Tackle

Other problems are caused by players dodging or breaking the first tackle and not being pinged as soon as the second tackle is laid.
Dodging/breaking a tackle counts as prior. But that doesn't mean you get pinged the instant the second tackle is laid, you still get a chance to dispose, the timeframe being 'immediately'.

17.6.2 Free Kicks - Holding the Ball: Prior Opportunity
(a) Where a Player in Possession of the Football has had Prior Opportunity, a Free Kick shall be awarded if that Player does not Correctly Dispose of the football immediately when they are Legally Tackled.
 

JoeHawk

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Seriously, we've become such a nation of self-righteous sooks. Umpires do not win or lose your team games!!!! Are the perfect? No. Do they make mistakes? Yes.

Every game I go to the football do you know how many times I sit there listening to people yelling out "Ball!" when it blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain and a bit of football knowledge that it is clearly NOT holding the ball by ANY definition of the rules? Let's just say its well past double figures.
Don’t they? Remember round 2 and the 2-3 GIFTED goals you got when the game was in the balance? Clearly snuffed out any chance Hawks had of coming back. #freekickbulldogs
 

Libba39

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Don’t they? Remember round 2 and the 2-3 GIFTED goals you got when the game was in the balance? Clearly snuffed out any chance Hawks had of coming back. #freekickbulldogs

So it had nothing to do with being two players down?

The seven legitimate goals in the quarter would have been enough for us to win anyway....lol.

#keeponsooking
 

Thebisc

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Baffles me how so many people continually make the comparison of umpire mistakes to player mistakes. It’s such a stupid comparison and a weak excuse for poor umpiring. Players are ‘competing’. Physically challenging opponents whilst trying to execute ball skills. Part of playing the actual game is forcing opponents to make mistakes. Umpires are ‘officiating’ a set of rules(albeit ridiculously ambiguous ones). Completely different tasks so comparing mistakes from one to the other should never enter a conversation🤷🏻‍♂️
 

FastLane

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If you’re tackled to the ground with plenty of prior opportunity l. It shouldn’t matter if he eventually got a Handball out. He already had his chance to handball. They really have made rules for holding the ball just moronic. They can’t justify that
15.2.3 in the laws of the game is where you’ll see where they got it wrong with the crisp one
Jakey boy stringer should have been done about 10 times during the game based on your view

goes both ways
suck it up and quit whingeing
 

JoeHawk

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So it had nothing to do with being two players down?

The seven legitimate goals in the quarter would have been enough for us to win anyway....lol.

#keeponsooking
Certainly didn’t help either. As I said, decisions like that are deflating and umpires can ABSOLUTELY influence a result.
 

Oxirane

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Does holding onto the jumper minimally (say with some fabric between the thumb and pinky) count as a legal tackle, or does it have to be more substantial?
I'm guessing it should count because the player with the ball can't bounce it, but it seems like that would mess up everything else.

Also if a player marked the ball, was called to play-on then an opponent walked up and held his jumper lightly. If both of the players stood still, when would the umpire pay a holding the ball free kick (I guess that would be the interpretation of 'immediately').
 

Ron The Bear

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Yes it was a good tackle but I don't think he tries to run a few steps, I think that was all part of the tackling action bringing him to ground and trying to keep balance during that process. The rules say you are given a chance to dispose and he did actually dispose. If you threw the ball onto your foot like that in the goal square whilst on the ground and it nicks your foot and goes through then it's a goal, it counts as a kick.

17.6 HOLDING THE BALL
17.6.1 Spirit and Intention
The Player who has Possession of the Football will be provided an opportunity to dispose of the football before rewarding an opponent for a Legal Tackle


Dodging/breaking a tackle counts as prior. But that doesn't mean you get pinged the instant the second tackle is laid, you still get a chance to dispose, the timeframe being 'immediately'.

17.6.2 Free Kicks - Holding the Ball: Prior Opportunity
(a) Where a Player in Possession of the Football has had Prior Opportunity, a Free Kick shall be awarded if that Player does not Correctly Dispose of the football immediately when they are Legally Tackled.

They're being given far too much opportunity.

There was one on Wednesday night, the player ducked the first tackle, was wrapped up by the second... ball-up. Plenty of others this year where players have gone the fend-off and been wrapped up by someone else... ball-up.
 

Ron The Bear

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Why didn’t they pay it then? They aren’t paying them anymore and the afl are at fault.

The players know that unless they're brought down, they can hang onto the ball until an opportunity comes along to dispose of it productively.

If Essendon had won on Wednesday, it would've been the Collingwood supporters booing. It was that bad.
 
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I'm happy saying that we got the rub of the green this week, however, it's basically that s**t against us every other week!
You had the best differential of any team last year with +99, in the game against Richmond the free kick count was 27 to 9 how a team only gets 9 frees in a game is beyond me?

This year you have the 2nd most frees for, 1 less than the Lions, maybe you should watch with both eyes open.
 
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This is why the AFL is screwed:
https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-04-27/they-were-the-correct-calls-umpire-stands-by-anzac-day-calls

Not only is the umpiring error riddled, but they stand by those decisions and refuse to accept that there is a problem. It's way too inconsistent. The umpiring department needs an overhaul.
LoL

The umpire actually provides clarification of how they interpret events. There is an accompanying video piece where Whately and Ryan go through the incidents and explain the rationale.

If you have actually watched the vision with the explanation and still don’t get it you will never get it.

All three of the holding the ball non-calls were based on the same consistent ruling, they view was the magpie player actually disposed of the ball legally. You can’t penalise a player for holding the ball if the player handballed or kicks the ball!

Yet despite this, you think they are inconsistent!?

They have told everyone that players who raise arm to create high contact won’t receive a free kick. That was the view of Tippa incident.

They have also told players that front on head high contact is almost always a free, and the view was Pendles was picking the ball up and hence front on contact warrants a free as Merrett ran into Pendles.

* me, the AFL can provide instructional videos on how rules are going to be interpreted, have umpires actually clarify how decisions are arrived at...but fans ignore it.
 
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Based on the explanation though, they'll never get any decision wrong and that's the problem with the rules and how they're written.

There's too many possible outcomes for each incident that any could be right. If they made the opposite calls, they can also explain their way out of it too.

Rules are broken, umpires are trying their best with a rulebook that's messed up.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 

JayJ20

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The umpire actually provides clarification of how they interpret events. There is an accompanying video piece where Whately and Ryan go through the incidents and explain the rationale.

If you have actually watched the vision with the explanation and still don’t get it you will never get it.

All three of the holding the ball non-calls were based on the same consistent ruling, they view was the magpie player actually disposed of the ball legally. You can’t penalise a player for holding the ball if the player handballed or kicks the ball!

Yet despite this, you think they are inconsistent!?

They have told everyone that players who raise arm to create high contact won’t receive a free kick. That was the view of Tippa incident.

They have also told players that front on head high contact is almost always a free, and the view was Pendles was picking the ball up and hence front on contact warrants a free as Merrett ran into Pendles.

**** me, the AFL can provide instructional videos on how rules are going to be interpreted, have umpires actually clarify how decisions are arrived at...but fans ignore it.
I have watched the video and it's complete BS to try and save face. Of course the umpire who was umpiring the game is going to explain his thoughts about why they paid or did not pay it. Does not mean it is correct. Collingwood supporters are in denial when everyone else can see that they were the wrong decisions. If that happened to Collingwood, every Collingwood supporter would 100% say the exact same thing.

If all of those were paid the other way, no one would have batted an eyelid. There would be no controversy because they were blatant.

I'd like to see what Collingwood supporters say if that isn't paid in a losing prelim/grand final. Lucky for us that it's only a H&A game.
 
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New direction from the umpires today, let’s not make s**t decisions, let’s just not make any lol

I thought I was watching Rugby League with all the throwing.

Our game is now a hybrid , rugby league/ Rugby Union, Gill and his band of idiots being private school toffs who are Rugby Union devotees think that making our game closer to Union will give him World Domination, forgetting what makes OUR game great.

Gilligan thinks OUR game is his private play thing and toy.

Is well on his way of tottaly ******* it up if he hasn’t caused irreversible damage already, the quicker the Buffon gets thrown out on his ear the better
 
Jan 3, 2012
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LoL

The umpire actually provides clarification of how they interpret events. There is an accompanying video piece where Whately and Ryan go through the incidents and explain the rationale.

If you have actually watched the vision with the explanation and still don’t get it you will never get it.

All three of the holding the ball non-calls were based on the same consistent ruling, they view was the magpie player actually disposed of the ball legally. You can’t penalise a player for holding the ball if the player handballed or kicks the ball!

Yet despite this, you think they are inconsistent!?

They have told everyone that players who raise arm to create high contact won’t receive a free kick. That was the view of Tippa incident.

They have also told players that front on head high contact is almost always a free, and the view was Pendles was picking the ball up and hence front on contact warrants a free as Merrett ran into Pendles.

**** me, the AFL can provide instructional videos on how rules are going to be interpreted, have umpires actually clarify how decisions are arrived at...but fans ignore it.

Stopped reading when I saw Wankley name, the self confessed person who admitted he didn’t even play kick to kick when he was a child, and he is the guiding light for the AFL rules committee
 
Jan 3, 2012
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You had the best differential of any team last year with +99, in the game against Richmond the free kick count was 27 to 9 how a team only gets 9 frees in a game is beyond me?

This year you have the 2nd most frees for, 1 less than the Lions, maybe you should watch with both eyes open.

What you neglect is that 3 of those 9 were out of bounds on the full, genus they are a clean team those magpies
 

FastLane

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Can we please rename this thread 'Essendon and Richmond supporters whinge about umpires because Collingwood beat them' ?

This is deadset the most pathetic bunch of sooking I've read on this forum (which says a bit).

EVERY game has good and bad decisions- EVERY team gets shafted (except maybe Bulldogs, lol!)

The reality is- like the GF last year - all these sooks are focussing on the last 2 minutes- a time I would argue, majority of supporters all ALL clubs would rather 50/50 decisions waved on and only 100% obvious frees paid.

The rest of both games, there were plenty of horrible decisions- I would argue both WCE in GF and Pies on Anzac day, got shafted worse over the whole game- yet because a couple of contentious decisions weren't paid people are crying like babies.

Umpiring has got worse no doubt, but society has got even worse- bunch of sooks.
 

Socrates2

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The problem is that once tackled,the player is allowed far too long to dispose of the ball. It should be as soon as you are tackled like it used to be.
 
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Just an utter disgrace that Ryan can come out and defend that performance.

AFL umpires are ranked by game and the higher your rank the better your chance to umpire a final.

Why in the hell would he say he made mistakes when it could cost him umpiring a final?

The AFL having an umpire from the contentious game come out and make judgements on the contentious decisions is like having a defendant act as the judge of his own case.
 
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