This week's free kick count was outrageous, not so much for the frees against us that were paid - although two Carlton goals resulted from seriously doubtful calls - but for the ones we should have had but which were not paid. But I was not even especially enraged by those three clowns since we were the architects of our own demise with lousy kicking for goal, dumb decision making, excessive reliance on handball even in the wet and a surprisingly docile midfield.

But still, I have been inspired to check the stats and it confirms for me what I have seen for years, that the Bulldogs for some reason get the softest run in the comp.

So here they are folks, the current free kick differentials by club. For mine the surprises are that Norf rate as positively as they do - surely Lindsay Thomas can't duck that often - and that West Coast are not ranked even more positively than they are. And look at Collingwood: even in a rubbish season they get a soft run. There goes my theory that the struggling clubs generally cop a harsher judgement from the umps. The Giants defy that too. Hawthorn, for all their thuggery do pretty well too. Carlton, courtesy of yesterday are doing pretty well.

Western Bulldogs +84

North Melbourne +58

Collingwood +40

West Coast +35

Hawthorn +23

Adelaide +22

Carlton +22

Essendon +14

 

Brisbane -12

 

Fremantle -16

 

Richmond -20

 

Melbourne -23

 

Sydney -26

 

St Kilda -33

 

GC Suns -34

 

WS Giants -38

 

Geelong -40

 

Port Adelaide -57

 

 

 

 

 

All things considered I dont think the umpires were too bad yesterday. Alot of 50-50 ones went against us but no real howlers. They were far worse in the Hawthorn game. 

Although interestingly we had the equal second lowest count of all time, only 2 games has a team had less:

http://afltables.com/afl/stats/teamshi.html#l12

Why do people always think free kick counts need to be even? We don't demand that other stats get made even, yet somehow we think that two teams will earn roughly the same amount of free kicks in a game.

 

1 minute ago, stuie said:

Why do people always think free kick counts need to be even? We don't demand that other stats get made even, yet somehow we think that two teams will earn roughly the same amount of free kicks in a game.

 

Of course they don't need to be even, but don't try telling everyone that we only deserved around 5 free kicks for an entire game.

Didn't cost us the game, but was out of whack nonetheless. 

Does the stats say whether or not if we get more free kicks than the opposition we win the game, or is there inconsistencies here as well?  Over a year or so.

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

Why do people always think free kick counts need to be even? We don't demand that other stats get made even, yet somehow we think that two teams will earn roughly the same amount of free kicks in a game.

 

I dont think they need to be even, however I do not believe it is possible to get through a game and 1 side only give away 5 frees, they are human they make mistakes. Frees arn't always a team being dirty like some people seem to insinuate but they do occur and Carlton were far from perfect yesterday despite what the count suggests.

7 minutes ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

I dont think they need to be even, however I do not believe it is possible to get through a game and 1 side only give away 5 frees, they are human they make mistakes. Frees arn't always a team being dirty like some people seem to insinuate but they do occur and Carlton were far from perfect yesterday despite what the count suggests.

I'm more talking generally rather than specifically about yesterday's game. We definitely got a bit of a raw deal yesterday.

 

One reason why North, WCE and Hawks do well as they have so many 'duckers' who know how to milk the frees.

54 minutes ago, pitmaster said:

This week's free kick count was outrageous, not so much for the frees against us that were paid - although two Carlton goals resulted from seriously doubtful calls - but for the ones we should have had but which were not paid. But I was not even especially enraged by those three clowns since we were the architects of our own demise with lousy kicking for goal, dumb decision making, excessive reliance on handball even in the wet and a surprisingly docile midfield.

But still, I have been inspired to check the stats and it confirms for me what I have seen for years, that the Bulldogs for some reason get the softest run in the comp.

So here they are folks, the current free kick differentials by club. For mine the surprises are that Norf rate as positively as they do - surely Lindsay Thomas can't duck that often - and that West Coast are not ranked even more positively than they are. And look at Collingwood: even in a rubbish season they get a soft run. There goes my theory that the struggling clubs generally cop a harsher judgement from the umps. The Giants defy that too. Hawthorn, for all their thuggery do pretty well too. Carlton, courtesy of yesterday are doing pretty well.

 

 

 

 

The North result surprised you? I watch them very little but every time I do they get a great run with the umps, including in every game against us for years. The dogs were the ones that surprised me, I thought they would be in positive territory but not quite that far. 

We have a negative differential purely due to the number of dumb football players in our side who continue to make the same awful decisons every week ie it is not a conspiracy

46 minutes ago, stuie said:

Why do people always think free kick counts need to be even? We don't demand that other stats get made even, yet somehow we think that two teams will earn roughly the same amount of free kicks in a game.

 

I don't expect them to be even but a 400% difference is staggering. It wasn't even the ones they paid the Blues, there were some shockers but there always are, it was the ones we didn't get like Hogan being pushed from a marking contest by a player facing him not even looking near the ball while his team mate marked in our goal square, or Max being pushed out of the ruck and shepherded from competing again and again and again, only to have a free paid against his for doing the same. 

1 free for a whole half of a game is unheard of and really can't happen. It doesn't matter how dominant the opposition there will be more than 1 mistake made by a team to give away a free in a half of footy. 

5 minutes ago, Chris said:

I don't expect them to be even but a 400% difference is staggering. It wasn't even the ones they paid the Blues, there were some shockers but there always are, it was the ones we didn't get like Hogan being pushed from a marking contest by a player facing him not even looking near the ball while his team mate marked in our goal square, or Max being pushed out of the ruck and shepherded from competing again and again and again, only to have a free paid against his for doing the same. 

1 free for a whole half of a game is unheard of and really can't happen. It doesn't matter how dominant the opposition there will be more than 1 mistake made by a team to give away a free in a half of footy. 

 

40 minutes ago, stuie said:

I'm more talking generally rather than specifically about yesterday's game. We definitely got a bit of a raw deal yesterday.

 

 

1 hour ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

All things considered I dont think the umpires were too bad yesterday. Alot of 50-50 ones went against us but no real howlers. They were far worse in the Hawthorn game. 

Although interestingly we had the equal second lowest count of all time, only 2 games has a team had less:

http://afltables.com/afl/stats/teamshi.html#l12

The umpiring was pretty good yesterday. We lost the free count because we were second to the ball.

I just find it staggering that in 2 hours of football you could only have 5 free kicks...

The 2 glaring ones for mine was the Cripps holding the ball decision on Jones in the 2nd term that resulted in a goal, yes Jones dove on the ball but Cripps had him in a headlock, the onus is still on the tackler to lay a legal tackle... The other was the Vince chopping of the arms on the Carlton forward, cant remember who but it was a perfect spoil, didnt even touch his arms, if that's a free kick then defenders must give it away & let the forwards take mark after mark because there's nothing more he could have done.

Also how many times did Kade Simpson pick the ball up, take a tackler on, turn in the tackle & go to ground & the umpire balls it up. 

The umpires weren't the reason we lost but those soft goals & blatant non decisions don't help.

5 minutes ago, chookrat said:

The umpiring was pretty good yesterday. We lost the free count because we were second to the ball.

Yeah im forgiving of the 50-50s its only the really bad ones I dont like. Since there wasnt many (if any) of them I thought they were good enough. I was just interested by the 2nd lowest total stat. Overall it had little to do with the result.

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Why do people always think free kick counts need to be even? We don't demand that other stats get made even, yet somehow we think that two teams will earn roughly the same amount of free kicks in a game.

 

Exactly.

I umpired in the Eastern Footy League under Kevin Smith (4 time VFL grand final umpire). He always said that the free kick count was the most irrelevant factor in assessing the performance of an umpire. If an umpire paid 30-0 free kicks in favour of one side, that's fine as long as the frees and non frees were paid correctly.

People blaming the umpires for yesterday's debacle need to get a grip.

7 minutes ago, chookrat said:

The umpiring was pretty good yesterday. We lost the free count because we were second to the ball.

By 400%?

We were second to the ball for much of the day, we should have lost both the game and free kick count, but can you really say we only really had 5 frees for the game and they didn't miss at least another 5 obvious frees?

11 minutes ago, JV7 said:

I just find it staggering that in 2 hours of football you could only have 5 free kicks...

The 2 glaring ones for mine was the Cripps holding the ball decision on Jones in the 2nd term that resulted in a goal, yes Jones dove on the ball but Cripps had him in a headlock, the onus is still on the tackler to lay a legal tackle... The other was the Vince chopping of the arms on the Carlton forward, cant remember who but it was a perfect spoil, didnt even touch his arms, if that's a free kick then defenders must give it away & let the forwards take mark after mark because there's nothing more he could have done.

Also how many times did Kade Simpson pick the ball up, take a tackler on, turn in the tackle & go to ground & the umpire balls it up. 

The umpires weren't the reason we lost but those soft goals & blatant non decisions don't help.

There is two, the ones for me were Frost being done for holding when he slipped and stood up as three Carlton players tackled him. I can live with that decision but 5 minutes later a Carlton player had the ball for longer with much more chance to dispose of it and it wasn't called, the inconsistency was incredibly frustrating. Then there was Gawn being blocked from the ruck at least twice by a non ruck Carlton player, both went un-noticed, and Hogan being pushed out in the goal square by a player not even trying to look at the ball. Hogan probably still would have missed the shot though. 

On a side note, I've followed the NFL for the last few years & the same referees umpire together all year. That way you know what each one pays & doesn't pay & you don't have that inconsistency as much. Really don't understand why the AFL doesn't go down the same path

5 minutes ago, JV7 said:

On a side note, I've followed the NFL for the last few years & the same referees umpire together all year. That way you know what each one pays & doesn't pay & you don't have that inconsistency as much. Really don't understand why the AFL doesn't go down the same path

Sounds like a great idea. One of my biggest hates since moving on from one ump is the inconsistency from one end to the other. I also think Roos is right when he puts the blame of the umpiring at the feet of the rules committee not the umpires. He says the rules committee have made a game that was easy to umpire into one that is incredibly hard. He said yesterday that he now has no idea what the rules are, that says a lot about the rule of Dill and Andy D before him. 

39 minutes ago, Chris said:

Sounds like a great idea. One of my biggest hates since moving on from one ump is the inconsistency from one end to the other. I also think Roos is right when he puts the blame of the umpiring at the feet of the rules committee not the umpires. He says the rules committee have made a game that was easy to umpire into one that is incredibly hard. He said yesterday that he now has no idea what the rules are, that says a lot about the rule of Dill and Andy D before him. 

To be fair, the rules committee changes rules because of what the coaches do to the game. So, coaches, rules committee and umpires all contribute to the problem.

Having said that, I don't think the rules committee has covered itself in glory in the last 5 years or so.

the other annoying aspect is when they bring in a new interpretation and apply it with over-kill, then gradually during the season scale it back dramatically.

good example this year was the deliberate out of bounds. red hot initially, now rarely paid (thankfully)

another has been the "sacrosanct" head contact we saw a couple of years ago has been scaled back (and seems to coincide with more concussions)

just talking about the inconsistency over a relatively short period of time. it seems to be more an exercise of experimentation than common sense

A free kick differential of up to ±44 over a season is no more than 2 per game. You can hardly claim that's statistically significant, or that it matters much and affects outcomes. So for 15 of the 18 clubs, the differential is virtually meaningless

Port Adelaide might analyse why they are giving away about 3 more free kicks per game than their opposition, but I bet they don't waste much time on it. In an individual game, it will hardly make a difference if they get, for example, 15 free kicks and their opposition gets 18.

Same for the Bulldogs and North, if they get 20 and their opposition gets 16-17.

are you a financial consultant in real-life, maurie? 

8 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

the other annoying aspect is when they bring in a new interpretation and apply it with over-kill, then gradually during the season scale it back dramatically.

good example this year was the deliberate out of bounds. red hot initially, now rarely paid (thankfully)

another has been the "sacrosanct" head contact we saw a couple of years ago has been scaled back (and seems to coincide with more concussions)

just talking about the inconsistency over a relatively short period of time. it seems to be more an exercise of experimentation than common sense

I think the umpiring has been horrifically inconsistent and i put it down to one thing that will never change.

Three umpires. The reality is that interpretation will always vary when there are 3 umpires. How many times are we seeing the umpire not paying a free kick right in front of him only to have an umpire 30 metres away calling it. How many times to we see identical incidents having polar opposite rulings - that is because it is a different umpire calling the decisions.