Winners get the frees, losers complain about the frees.

Win the hardball you will get the frees.

Sorry but it really annoys me when people blame umpires for a loss. My view is that if a team is good enough to win a game of football, they should be able to do that without the help of the umpires. Teams are presented with chances in a game to kick a winning score, and on the other hand should be able to defend successfully to prevent a winning score being kicked agains them. Yes some things with the umpires didn't go our way, and goals were kicked against us. But is not the reason for our loss. Once again we were inept in the first half and that was the ultimate reason for our loss.

In my mind blaming an umpire for a loss is [censored] weak excuse, and merely shifts the responsibility away from our team.

Win the hardball you will get the frees.

If only that was the case !

With the interpretation of holding the ball law - it has bred a generation of lurkers - how may times do we now see players refusing to pick up the ball for fear of getting pinged. Getting second to the ball is not a bad thing now as the guy making the play is no longer at an advantage.

I cant remember ever seeing umpires costing us a game so I dont whinge about "What they did to us"

However - over the past two seasons the standard of umpiring and interpretation of rules is taking the fun out of the game for me. The amount of "guessing" they are doing is mind boggling - if you are not sure dont blow your whistle. If you pull the ball in it gives the opposition carte blanche to dive on your back. The umpires are usually on the blind side of the pack and have no idea if the ball is out or not and more often than not it is the opposition holding the ball under you so it is impossible to get it out. So yes - i will whinge about the umpires - period. They are ruining all football. All you need to do is take of the "bias hat" and watch non MFC games of football to see the depths that umpiring has sunk.

What really upsets me is the umpiring during last years finals was fantastic - they only blew the whistle when an obvious free was there. I know it is the best umpires working together but why cant we get that standard the whole year.

can't wait for the umpires to "remember" the in the back rule.

Striker I love your passion for the Dees but do you think the umpires felt sorry for us in the third and decided to even things up? Hard at the contest and first to the ball wins games of footy. We played one quarter of footy for the whole game, If we had of played the whole game like that we would have won by 100+. Still would have had the same umpires.

It's more the big decisions. Every one went against us. Even when Bartram got that 50 it was lucky to be 30m.

4 50m to 1 is always going to have a massive impact in a 7pt ball game.

I'm still not over the 1st 50m penalty they got... payed for going over the mark after the player had already played on? Wasnt even a free. Yes the ump was blind sided but a free goal at the bounce for something like that hurt.

The umpires are always going to stuff up but do we have to harbour so many free kick giving away machines? God we give away a lot of silly and careless free kicks.

Jamar has given away 10 in the last three games! Jamar in general has been terrible since returning from injury for that matter.

I'm still not over the 1st 50m penalty they got... payed for going over the mark after the player had already played on? Wasnt even a free. Yes the ump was blind sided but a free goal at the bounce for something like that hurt.

Agree. Have watched the incident about 10 times and you are totally correct. There was no free and then Martin played on handballing to Cotchin and Bartram chased Cotchin. No one except McBurney knew what was happening. I have also noticed that McBurney in the games he has umpired against us has nearly every time paid the other side a free within 30 seconds of the start and often a 50 as well. In the game against the Eagles last week he incorrectly paid a free for running into the square at a bounce when we in fact only had 3 in the square at the time. Then a few minutes later in what appeared a square up he paid a dubious mark to us close to goal. Makes a lot of mistakes.

It's more the big decisions. Every one went against us. Even when Bartram got that 50 it was lucky to be 30m.

4 50m to 1 is always going to have a massive impact in a 7pt ball game.

Spot on, Striker.

Of course those decisions had a huge impact on the result of the game, when the final margin was 7 points.

By the way, I'm sick of these "holier than thou" posters who say they never criticise the umps, or say the umps never have an effect on the result.

If you can't have a private whinge on a club's unofficial website, I reckon it's further evidence that the drive for political correctness is overcoming us.

There has long been a term that refers to someone being a sore loser if they cannot achieve the desired outcome, there were clearly some errors with the umpiring during the game and it went both ways, it didn't determine the outcome of the game though! I would strongly suggest that it was the intensity or lack there of in the first half that cost us the game not 3 or 4 bad calls!

What about Bartram's 30m penalty.

Absolutely. At the time I thought it was only a mere ~20m, but I'll negotiate with you and say he was given 25m. I couldn't believe it.

Clearly it's hard for them to estimate a distance of 50m.

There has long been a term that refers to someone being a sore loser if they cannot achieve the desired outcome, there were clearly some errors with the umpiring during the game and it went both ways, it didn't determine the outcome of the game though! I would strongly suggest that it was the intensity or lack there of in the first half that cost us the game not 3 or 4 bad calls!

I understand exactly this sentiment in a 30pt or 40pt game when someone says 'oh, we could have won the game if not for the umpiring'. Wrong. But in a case such as this, where every single gamebreaker call has gone in favour of Richmond, it is far more possible that it did win them the game. I believe it did, especially when you look at the 50m penalty count as well as both the Bartram '50' and the first 50m penalty where the Richmond player was clearly off.

Striker, they're excuses. And you won't change their mind. It went both ways. They won 3 quarters of footy. We turned it over that many times, it proved costly. Blame the errors, execution and turnovers. And getting creamed in the middle the first half.