I was outraged by the 50 metre penalty against Fritsch at the time, so I followed up with a bit of analysis.

First up, we all agree that Fritsch was trying to slow down Brisbane (and Bailey's) ball movement. Here's my description of the sequence.

Fritsch slides across the boundary line to attempt a mark. Bailey (Brisbane 33) gives him a little nudge forward. The Boundary Umpire whistles for OOF. Soon after, Curtis Deboy, umpire number 11, whistles the stop in play as he runs toward the two players. Meanwhile Bailey 33 tries to get ball. Fritsch is trying to get to his feet. Deboy calls out "Bailey". Bailey 33 now has Fritsch's head between his legs. He then pushes Fritsch to the ground by shoving down on his shoulders (this fits into Fritsch's plan beautifully). With Fritsch now lying face down, Deboy calls out, "Bailey, give it back". Bailey regains his feet (which he is entitled to do as he will be manning the mark) and immediately hands the ball to Bailey 33. Deboy has already decided to pay a 50 metre penalty and adjudicates that decision at the same instant that Fritsch is handing the ball back.

Now lets look at that in time!

From the moment Deboy says, "Bailey, give it back", 6 seconds transpires before Fritsch hands the ball to Bailey 33.

NOW, PLEASE COMPARE WHAT I HAVE DESCRIBED WITH A SIMILAR INCIDENT 10 MINUTES EARLIER

With 12:07 to go on the time clock, Petracca lands a beautiful tackle on Bailey 33 between the centre circle and the wing Boundary line. Umpire 3, Leigh Fisher blows the whistle to award a free kick for HTB to Petracca. Bailey 33 tries to slow things down and as Petracca tries to retrieve the ball, Bailey 33 pushes the ball away along the ground. Petracca immediately looks at umpire Fisher with the expression, "Did you see what he did?". No reaction from Fisher and Petracca gets the ball.

My point... 12 seconds transpired with this bit of by-play between umpires whistle and Petracca getting his hands on the ball. No 50 metre penalty for a sequence that was twice as long as Deboy's mischief!

By the way, 6 seconds of game time was lost with the recall after Lever's mark as well as any advantage we had with field position.

 

Edited July 27, 20205 yr by waynewussell
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At the time I thought Fritsch was paid the 50 against for "milking the fall" which he may have but he was visibly pushed down in front of the umpire.

Actually Brisbane players slowed the game down cleverly a number of times when frees were awarded against them.

Here's the Petracca one earlier.

 

 

Having only been able to listen to the game previously, I actually startled my wife with my exclamation when I was that clip just now.

I have spent my whole football watching life being a defender of individual umpires, that they should be treated as anonymous and generally accepted for the inevitable flawed calls, but I am going to remember No. 11, Curtis Deboy.

That was not some kind of incidental flawed call, that was inexcusable to the point of raising bias issues.

We always suspected the umpiring was arbitrary and random, but now science has proven it!

 

Brisbane were smarter than us at slowing down and annoying the oppo, and yesterday it worked for them. Another day, it won't, and then they'll be flooding bigfooty and facebook with outrage.

I don't mind them trying it on ... we should be doing more of that given the uselessness of the umpiring generally ... but in the big picture, all it does is illustrate how awful the umpiring has been this year.

8 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

We always suspected the umpiring was arbitrary and random, but now science has proven it!

 

Brisbane were smarter than us at slowing down and annoying the oppo, and yesterday it worked for them. Another day, it won't, and then they'll be flooding bigfooty and facebook with outrage.

I don't mind them trying it on ... we should be doing more of that given the uselessness of the umpiring generally ... but in the big picture, all it does is illustrate how awful the umpiring has been this year.

We need to stop accepting poor decisions meekly and present outrage as Zorko, Cameron, Robinson, Andrews, and other Lions’ players did regularly yesterday.

We present as angelic private schoolboys rather than imposing a... holes, and umpires aren’t intimidated by us!

16 minutes ago, joeboy said:

We need to stop accepting poor decisions meekly and present outrage as Zorko, Cameron, Robinson, Andrews, and other Lions’ players did regularly yesterday.

We present as angelic private schoolboys rather than imposing a... holes, and umpires aren’t intimidated by us!

And if we did, you can bet it would be 50 against us every time for arguing.

Instead, i would just like to see us kick and mark like a top 4 team

 

 

Hell, i would be happy to see us kick and mark like a top 10 team.

 

Unpopular opinion, but taking the red and blue blinkers off the 50 was probably there. All Fritsch needed to do was hold Bailey up for a few seconds - he simply didn't need to tread such a fine line as we were set up behind play anyway. That's just dumb football. Players always feign sudden and complete loss of co-ordination when 'attempting' to hand the ball back, but there comes a point that you're just blatantly taking the [censored]. Petracca was unlucky, but we sure as hell didn't lose the game because of one non-50. There's such a high degree of subjectivity with these situations that there will always be inconsistencies in how they're interpreted by umpires. Annoying, but impossible to rectify.

Or just simply give the ball back straight away  when the umpires says so. 

Seriously people making excuses for the Fritsch 50 need to take your red and blue blinkers off. It didnt cost us the game, but it could have given us a far better chance to win if Bailey was still deep in the pocket and having to kick to a 50/50 contest. 

1 hour ago, Demonland said:

Here's the Petracca one earlier.

 

 

Petracca is too smiley for his own good sometimes!

Fritsch one was incredibly dumb, not only has he done that before this year, but why exactly was he wasting time when we needed to score to win? 100% a 50 every day of the week.

If this was a 3rd loss in a row we'd be putting it on the players, but because they won a couple and we're all back on the bandwagon we're looking for excuses. We played terribly and were incredibly lucky to get so close.

Move on.

2 hours ago, waynewussell said:

From the moment Deboy says, "Bailey, give it back", 6 seconds transpires before Fritsch hands the ball to Bailey 33.

My point... 12 seconds transpired with this bit of by-play between umpires whistle and Petracca getting his hands on the ball.

 

That's not really a like for like comparison time wise.

You're judging one by the whistle and one by the 'give it back'.

Judging both by the whistle they're pretty much identical, the difference being the Fritsch one is far more obvious.

Fritsch one was definitely 50. The Bailey one should have been as well, but for different reasons, as he sneakily tapped the ball away before stand over it.

34 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Or just simply give the ball back straight away  when the umpires says so. 

I'm 50/50 on it dazzle.  It hurt, but how often do we see players do exactly what Fritsch did and not get punished?  Look at the Trac one above - the player actually knocked the ball away and got away with it.  Fritta was pushed down, got up and was in the process of handing the ball over when he gave him fifty.  He's a bit stiff in my opinion.  He could do that next week and not get penalised.

Just now, Wiseblood said:

I'm 50/50 on it dazzle.  It hurt, but how often do we see players do exactly what Fritsch did and not get punished?  Look at the Trac one above - the player actually knocked the ball away and got away with it.  Fritta was pushed down, got up and was in the process of handing the ball over when he gave him fifty.  He's a bit stiff in my opinion.  He could do that next week and not get penalised.

He wasn't 'pushed down'. He clearly puts his head down and pushes the Brisbane player to try and delay things.

50 every single day of the week, just over the top by Fritsch and a few media commentators have already called him out on it.

4 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

He wasn't 'pushed down'. He clearly puts his head down and pushes the Brisbane player to try and delay things.

50 every single day of the week, just over the top by Fritsch and a few media commentators have already called him out on it.

You had better take a closer look, Lord Nev!

15 minutes ago, waynewussell said:

You had better take a closer look, Lord Nev!

Watched it multiple times mate. Seems pretty clear Fritsch put his head between the Lions players legs as he gets up and tries to use his momentum forward to cause more delay, sure the Lions player pushes him, but that's AFTER Fritsch instigated it.

Incredibly dumb by him and an obvious 50.

Labelled a 'smart Alec' who cost his team in the media already.

Regardless of which way you look at it.. this is one area the AFL need to improve. I’d love to see 5 x 50s paid a game to get things moving.. the throw back to the opponent that almost a hits the roof at Marvel Stadium drives me nuts.. 

If an umpire has to ask you twice to return the ball.. it’s 50

2 hours ago, Demonland said:

Here's the Petracca one earlier.

 

 

This is what I do understand. This was paid holding the ball right, so Bailey has the ball when the decision is made. How was it not 50m  after he’s let go of the ball or pushed the ball away? 

3 hours ago, Demonland said:

Here's the Petracca one earlier.

 

 

Yes that was a fifty. 

57 minutes ago, Megatron said:

This is what I do understand. This was paid holding the ball right, so Bailey has the ball when the decision is made. How was it not 50m  after he’s let go of the ball or pushed the ball away? 

I hate when players are pinned htb and they just let go of the ball to the ground then shepherd the tackler from collecting the ball. If it’s htb the rules should say they  have to return the ball on the full straight away. 

It was clearly 50 against Fritsch. No doubt about it. He stuffed up considerably.

It was also 50 against Bailey in the Petracca one. No doubt about that one either.

If there's anything to be upset about it's the lack of consistency, but the decision against Fritsch was 100% correct.

18 minutes ago, Gunna’s said:

I hate when players are pinned htb and they just let go of the ball to the ground then shepherd the tackler from collecting the ball. If it’s htb the rules should say they  have to return the ball on the full straight away. 

This has been annoying me for a while now.

Obvious 50, they just drop the ball on the ground.

This is the trouble with the game...the rules are there but they are not being adjudicated properly.

The game would flow better if stalling tactics were seen for what they are.

16 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

It was clearly 50 against Fritsch. No doubt about it. He stuffed up considerably.

It was also 50 against Bailey in the Petracca one. No doubt about that one either.

If there's anything to be upset about it's the lack of consistency, but the decision against Fritsch was 100% correct.

Spot on 'titan'...for Fritsch, it was just dumb football. Definite 50

Bailey was doing as he's been coached...Fagen/Clarkson school.

The umps have been sucked in to letting this go.

Definite 50...

I remembered watching the Petracca one and thinking how is that not 50 as twice the Lions player deliberately prevented Trac from getting the ball.

Fritch's was definitely a 50 though, his mistake was that Fritta went to handball, then rolled over, and then handed the ball when he could've tossed the ball. It was silly and unnecessary as it actually made more sense to get things moving again.

The umpires had one of those nights where up was down, down as up, and had very little consistency on things. The worst being the chip kicks, there was one incident where a Lions player kicked it to a team mate who was called to play on (correctly) and then kicked it back to the exact same position for the umpire to call a mark.

To say it was frustrating is an understatement.