WAFL Umpiring

[swannies]

OK, seeing as my thoughts on the weekends umpiring were similar to Pablo's, I thought we could have a discussion on why we think the umpiring is so bad.

Is it because we are more critical? There is more attention paid to it because of the playback and replay functions we have these days? Or is it that as a society we are softer and criticism is simply not accepted or tolerated like previous generations?

Why do I think the old timers like Ball, James (VFL) were so fantastic but I wouldn't rate the recent guys in the same echelon?

Remember, we do need these guys to keep our great game running, so try and be constructive in your comments.

 

[pablo668]

Actually I was surprised not to be shot down in flames for my comments.

With me there's a few issues at play.

The changes in the game. There are a lot of things in todays game that get paid as frees which were nothing back in the day and to me seem contrary to the idea of a contact sport.
I'm not a fan of people getting hurt or their heads knocked off, but some decisions are just soft imo. But I could just be getting old.

Consistency. I am willing to believe that maybe I'm just not seeing as many of the frees that go our (my teams) way, but my team seems to be getting slaughtered week in, week out. Having said that there's been a couple games this year where the umpires could have been playing for us and I doubt it would have made a difference.

When to pay a fifty/ Frees that result in gifted goals.
As well as keeping the game fair and making just decisions I think one of the biggest roles of the umpire is to not influence the direction a game is heading in, especially with the aforementioned soft frees that result in goals. I've seen to many games (WAFL and AFL) where the ump has either gifted a goal to a team that is behind, keeping them in the game, or even called play back robbing a team of a goal just scored on a soft or 50/50 decision.

At the end of the day we do need umpires for our game to continue and to be fair I think the umps have been dealt a shit hand to officiate with, ie: recent rule changes and basically having to do their job in a way as mandated from those above them.

And Ross Capes was the best Ump in WAFL history.

eta: I'm not sure I've actually answered the op......

 

[Chris who]

I think the problem with the "gifting of goals" rule is you get players like Silvagni who ride the hell out of a forward with the knowledge they will have to commit unlawful pentetration to give away a free. Needs a balance