Halfway through the 3/4 the count was 15:1.. one free kick in 70+ minutes of football.

Not saying the umpiring was super terrible but that is quite a stat!

2 hours 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.

 

It was Nick Graham. That's one of the dodgy calls I was referring to that resulted in an umpire's goal.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

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.

No one's done that that I have seen. Read the OP carefully and you'll see I blame our blokes for the result.

The interesting thing for me is not one game but the trends that emerge over a season and the Dogs' treatment is extraordinary along with a few others that get a good run.

3 hours ago, faultydet said:

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. 

To not get 1 free in a quarter and a half....

i don't know how the boys playing think, but if a couple went our way, well, might've given a bit of confidence.  Meanwhile, blues knew they could do no wrong....played with a lot of confidence.  Must've been laughing on the inside.  A lot of Carlton supporters certainly were in the crowd.  If we were first at the ball, holding the ball.  If second, holding the man or too high, on a head ducker...

 

2 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

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

Had to laugh when heard on radio, Selwood complained bc Brisbane kid, Matheson, ducked his head and got a free 

2 hours 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. 

Jones should've approached umpires to query this.  He never does....

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

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.

Just out of interest what specifically is Kevin Smith's most relevant factor bearing in mind he would say what he said, wouldn't he?

Bearing in mind they didn't have a whistle in the D V

2 hours 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.

The holding the ball is open to real discrepancies and possibly manipulation, as with certain teams it is a ball up and others holding the ball. You can see exactly the identical situation umpired completely differently and it happens all the time.

If I wanted to cheat as an umpire and I don't say they do, but if I wanted to cheat, all I would need to do is pay holding the ball against one side and ball up to the other. Their excuse can be no attempt to get rid of it, or no opportunity and he tried. Unfortunately, as Roos says quite slyly, the rules are rubbish.

BTW, a Blues player was swung 360, 3 times, with the ball and it was play on, yet in the split second a tackle was laid on a Demon, it was holding the ball. 

Edited August 22, 20168 yr by Redleg

There were 2-3 holding the ball decisions in our forward line in the 1st quarter that weren't paid.  

It's the 50:50 ones that [censored] me. Where one side seems to get them and the other doesn't.  That the frustration.  

Blatant ones which are missed are obvious errors.

2 hours 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. 

For a Coach of this calibre to say that, to me, means there is a degree of preconceived interpretation making, minus flexibility,  being done. 

Nathan Jones being put in a headlock then being pinged for holding the ball, right in front of the umpire, didn't do my blood pressure any favours. Sure, he jumped on the ball, but he still has to be legally tackled. Umpire must have been too keen to make a statement vis-a-vis a holding call, which blinded him to the rules.

Great to see this reasonable discussion on the Free Kicks anomoly. "Sacro sanct" umpiring no more. This is a free country AFL

3 hours ago, Chris said:

By 400%?

4x. Which as a differential is 300%.  Which would definitely ensure 8th place so long as...

Gawn gets held in every ruck contest while the third man up goes for the hit out

in a whole game yesterday I can't remember one free kick to him the tactic is fine but I can't believe they do it perfectly for a whole game

8 minutes ago, deesrule said:

Gawn gets held in every ruck contest while the third man up goes for the hit out

in a whole game yesterday I can't remember one free kick to him the tactic is fine but I can't believe they do it perfectly for a whole game

There was one against him for essentially doing the same thing to them that they had been doing to him. He just laughed directly at the ump, not much more he could do. 

The Umpiring was the least of our problems yesterday. 

I reckon they were very lenient on the Blues 'disposal' of the ball. Most of the time we laid a tackle they'd simply drop the ball, and I don't recall them ever getting pinged for it.

1 hour ago, Tony Tea said:

Nathan Jones being put in a headlock then being pinged for holding the ball, right in front of the umpire, didn't do my blood pressure any favours. Sure, he jumped on the ball, but he still has to be legally tackled. Umpire must have been too keen to make a statement vis-a-vis a holding call, which blinded him to the rules.

Correct - I also thought the Tyson not getting rid of the ball was tough too. He evaded and then got squarely tackled from behind - if the tackle had been good then he was gorn... but again - you have to be tackled properly and the tackler tackled from behind getting into Tyson's back when taking him down. 

Look at the photo in the Sun today, of Weitering lying directly on top of Petracca.  

Result holding the ball.

He is on his back, before Petracca is pinged for holding the ball.

I thought tackles had to be legal and that you always pay the first infringement. Guess not.

3 hours ago, Mr Steve said:

The Umpiring was the least of our problems yesterday. 

The umpiring was one of our problems yesterday maybe the least maybe not the  margin was only just over three goals

7 hours ago, chookrat said:

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

No, it wasn't. 

Q1, Oliver sidestepped Kreuzer (I think).  Kreuzer swung wildly and slapped him across the face.  They were the only two players in the area, so no possibility of the umps not seeing it.  Both players stopped and looked at the umpire, who looked confused.  Oliver then kept going and hand passed to a teammate. 

On multiple occasions Carlton players scooped the ball upwards from the ground to a teammate.  There was no pretence of punching it.  This is adjudicated as a throw for most teams.

We had 1 free kick paid in the first half.  It was for a trip.  There were at least two other trips not paid, one of which was again in the open with no other players to obscure the umpire's view when a Carlton player made a despairing dive and ankle-tapped his opponent.  The other four frees were one each of a throw, high contact, holding and HTB. 

Max Gawn was held away from the drop of the ball at most throw-ins and ball-ups in an attempt to clear the way for a third man to take the hit-out.  When he did get free at throw-ins he was often pushed in the back to force him under the ball. 

Others have mentioned the headlock tackle on N. Jones which was paid as HTB.  No need to go over that again. 

Weideman with the sit going for a mark was tackled and bull-rushed sideways as he attempted to jump.  No call. 

Seriously, these are just the glaring examples that I can come up with off the top of my head. The Umpires were shocking. 

1 hour ago, deesrule said:

The umpiring was one of our problems yesterday maybe the least maybe not the  margin was only just over three goals

No. At best two went the wrong way. Www were slow and caught with the ball. We chased and gave away frees. Blaming the Umps is just a weak excuse for a bad game.

the umpiring certainly helped carlton, too often the umpires let the game go and players from both sides were tackling badly and dropping the balls, holding the ball and nothing. Then when they did decide to pull one out of the hat in invariably went to the blues. 20 to 5. is a significant difference, we were not that bad we got pinged a lot more for holding it while they got away with it. And as has been mentioned they got away with a lot of acts that could have been called but werent.

All that aside the players we had even with the 3 so call poor in's should have won. Our woeful passing, and kicking for goal lost us the game. our forwards have been pretty good this year, but yesterday we were woeful. I personnally had hoped that we would beat carlton and geelong, but not make the finals. Because if we had made the finals it would have been just to make up the numbers this year. That way the boys would hopefully think a bit more about what could have been if they had put in a bit harder against Essendon and some other sides. Now they need to think about the carlton game as well as the essendon as two of their worst that could have seen them play finals football.

 

 

The other aspect to this is when you're having a bad day, shite luck follows you around. And, lets face it, most umpiring calls these days are NOT based on rules, they're based on an umpire's interpretation of the rule. And that, as Lou Reed once said, it's all about LUCK!

Teams like Hawthorn 'make' their own luck with umpires in that Hodge, Lewis, Gibson and Mitchell just have to look at an umpire to tell them it's time for a Hawthorn free kick.

1 hour ago, Mr Steve said:

No. At best two went the wrong way. Www were slow and caught with the ball. We chased and gave away frees. Blaming the Umps is just a weak excuse for a bad game.

I have no problems with Carlton getting 20 just not happy with us getting 1 in the first half and 5 for the game