Who in their right mind would want to be an umpire. It's an impossible job. 

that said we need a system to eliminate the shockers. The mark against May was was an obvious howler. Everyone saw he got his hands to the ball except the ump. perhaps video reviews for decisions which lead to a set-shot? A goal either way can have a huge influence on the outcome so worth considering in my view.

16 minutes ago, Better days ahead said:

Who in their right mind would want to be an umpire. It's an impossible job. 

that said we need a system to eliminate the shockers. The mark against May was was an obvious howler. Everyone saw he got his hands to the ball except the ump. perhaps video reviews for decisions which lead to a set-shot? A goal either way can have a huge influence on the outcome so worth considering in my view.

Our game doesn't lend itself to reviews of anything other than scores.

We have to accept bad decisions are going to be made in the running of a game and we can't expect that for every umpiring mistake the game can stop to review it.

Instead, we need to lift the standard of umpiring, and the starting point has to be investment from the AFL into the umpiring division.

The AFL are the ones meddling with the rules and constantly forcing the umpires to change their interpretation of said rules.    Yet the AFL don't want to invest in making the umpires professionals.  Moral of the story - who would want to be an umpire.  

32 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Our game doesn't lend itself to reviews of anything other than scores.

We have to accept bad decisions are going to be made in the running of a game and we can't expect that for every umpiring mistake the game can stop to review it.

Instead, we need to lift the standard of umpiring, and the starting point has to be investment from the AFL into the umpiring division.

Proper investment, training and development of the umps to lift standards is the first step for sure.

It would interrupt the flow. We’ve seen how over-used the score review system is. That whole process needs to be sharpened up

There will still be human errors / howlers though. The introduction of VAR in soccer is instructive. It’s treated as a panacea for all contentious calls. Doesn’t work in matters of interpretation but it will tell you if someone is a yard offside.

Maybe we’ll have to wait until the AI/machine umpire is invented to make the instantaneous infallible calls!

The AFL continually makes rule changes that call for harder decisions to be made by the umps.  For example, it is now OK to put your hands into an oppos back to take a mark as long as you don't push.  So the ump has to decide how hard you pushed, especially hard if the oppo is backing-up towards you.  This new rule/interpretation was seemingly introduced to allow the player in the rear to keep his balance (and kick more advertisements, sorry goals).  But why? If a player can't keep his balance without pushing someone in the back, however lightly, let him fall over and make the umps job easier.

50 minutes ago, sue said:

The AFL continually makes rule changes that call for harder decisions to be made by the umps. 

Take out all "intention". Example: soccer has no problem with the "last touch" rule. The AFL would dress it up with all kinds of junk about if the player really meant it, etc. Soccer: nope, doesn't matter how it happened. You touched it last.

 

The AFL have made a rod for the back with the concept of "interpretation", which is bogus and harmful. The rules & their officiation will never be black & white, but the AFL seem to love to blur it into grey at every opportunity.

11 hours ago, DubDee said:

We were favoured by the umpires if anything. Bad decisions on both sides

Collingwood deserved the win

Probably correct, DD. I still think that poor decisions have no balance in the wash-up - and the umpires' efforts to create that balance, to create an even, entertaining, crowd-pleasing event has no place in our great game when administered by them, not by the players themselves in playing at their best (for all that 'their best' might incorporate).

The spectacle panned out as intended and the exposure to supportive advertising from a million sources was achieved - that is all that the AFL is interested in when 'staging' a game, offering advertising spaces, selling broadcast rights, fleecing supporters at the turnstiles, affecting the where, when and why aspects of umpire attention, oversights and decision-making of the game and then, re-selling the whole process once more in replay and media without thinking of the consequent/subsequent anomolies.

I feel like having a beer in recollection of it all.

 

 

12 hours ago, DubDee said:

We were favoured by the umpires if anything. Bad decisions on both sides

Collingwood deserved the win

I can't believe people are complaining about the umpiring on Monday. We clearly had the better run of things, despite being second to the ball most of the day. Umpiring was about the 833rd biggest reason we lost.

The umpiring was meh like every game. Certainly not the reason we lost. 

I too however was shocked that Pendles could swear at an umpire and winge until a decision was reversed when no more than 2 minutes prior we had a 50 metre penalty against for swearing coming out of our forward 50.

16 hours ago, david_neitz_is_my_dad said:

They made some bad calls yes, but how can you be upset at that given how we played?

I would have settled for a dirty win..

21 hours ago, Flag 2021 said:

Can't be happy with the free against Sparrow or the mark not paid to May resulting in 2 free goals to the filth but how does the ump reverse a decision about out of bounds on the full because Pendlebury complains to him.

Plenty of players dispute decisions but they are never reversed; how come the Pies captain can get away with it?

I wasn’t angry about the Pendles out of bounds being changed, it was the right decision. The only major decision that was a momentum killer was just after TMac (who’s been a dead eye all year) missed his easy set shot it went up the other end and the Pies forward was paid the mark when May VERY CLEARLY got first hands to it. Changed the complexion of the game. 

Other than that I don’t feel we had a hell of a lot to complain about. Was just a dirty day all round. 

This is the one game where we can clearly say the umpiring cost us the game.

Nothing to do with the fact that we played like arrogant billionaires, didn't bother to man up, provided about 10% of the pressure we normally do, displayed skills not seen since the Neeld era and had our key forward former top 10 draft pick and potential generational talent had a whopping 4 handballs and 0 marks.

We should demand a royal commission into Monday's umpiring.

Edited June 17, 20213 yr by Bring-Back-Powell

19 hours ago, The heart beats true said:

The most bizarre thing about it is that the umpires never get dropped. It’s the same blokes every week, regardless of how poor they are.

That the umpires aren’t professional is no longer a ‘quirk’ of the game. It’s a deliberate decision to protect them from further scrutiny.

If a player makes 3 decisions in a game that directly cost 3 goals they won’t play the next week. If the umpires do it they have nothing to fear. They aren’t called out in the media directly, and it doesn’t cost them anything. It’s beyond bizarre.

PS - I thought the umpires made some howlers on the weekend but had no impact on the result.

I suspect you are querying why they are not full time, rather than commenting on them not being professional, given they are paid for doing this work. I suspect the answer might be along the lines of questioning what they would do to fill in the time between games. How much "training" and "coaching" would they need to do that they don't do now?

Also, in my view, the problem is not with the umpires but with there being too many rules open to interpretation.  

Edited June 17, 20213 yr by La Dee-vina Comedia

31 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I suspect you are querying why they are not full time, rather than commenting on them not being professional, given they are paid for doing this work. I suspect the answer might be along the lines of questioning what they would do to fill in the time between games. How much "training" and "coaching" would they need to do that they don't do now?

Also, in my view, the problem is not with the umpires but with there being too many rules open to interpretation.  

I think I use the term ‘professional’ here to mean that they don’t dedicate the majority of their time to the craft, and that as a result of that dedication they do a good job.

It’s a bit like my career working for big business. I showed up everyday, but I’m not sure many of my coworkers would describe me as ‘professional’.?

5 hours ago, The heart beats true said:

I think I use the term ‘professional’ here to mean that they don’t dedicate the majority of their time to the craft, and that as a result of that dedication they do a good job.

It’s a bit like my career working for big business. I showed up everyday, but I’m not sure many of my coworkers would describe me as ‘professional’.?

Them not being professional, and thus paid as a professional, is an interesting debate.

Will they get decisions right more often? I’m not sure they would, as I think one the biggest issues they face is the AFL rules committee tinkering with interpretations every bloody year. 

Will it change the scrutiny of the decisions they make? Likely yes, in a way that the media will harp on them being “professional umpires, and these mistakes shouldn’t happen”. Look at the FIFA World Cup, referees still get heavily criticised for the decisions they make but they are meant to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD. 

I’m not saying they shouldn’t go professional, but I don’t see it necessarily changing a whole lot. 

On 6/16/2021 at 8:55 PM, jnrmac said:

It was bad but not the reason we lost

Agree 100%, yet, like the last two non decisions in the Adelaide game, correct decisions at pivotal moments could well have changed the result. 

If that were to happen in a GF would there be more scrutiny?

God I love Demonland.

When we were constantly getting smashed and destroyed by umpires, it was because we were second to the ball.

On the weekend, we won the free kick count, yet we can't blame the umpires because we were second to the ball.

There's always some incredible logic on here to defend umpires. I loved the one about the Adelaide umpire that was too scared to pay the deliberate oob because he would've been attacked by the locals. We don't live in South America people!

Yet that same decision, when the suggestion came that umpires are corrupt, was met with a major howling down. In a country with corruption from top to bottom. AFL teams prepared  to inject their entire list with performance enhancing drugs. Other sports where players have been convicted of fixing certain outcomes. Racehorse trainers sponsored by major betting corporations. That was deemed to be more unrealistic. I find these behaviours to be quite incredible.

Back to the Collingwood game. Think about this from a footy, snap decision point of view. How would you play the next kick if you'd just been told to play on after taking a mark and not moving off the mark in the slightest? Think about the psychology of what is happening, that's where the game is being changed. Free kick counts can be manipulated easily enough based on where they are paid. Do we get that info? No.

I had data about 4-5 years ago that proved any game could be won by a team having 13 more free kicks than their opposition. 100%. That is no longer the case, and it conveniently coincides with new rules that are extremely difficult to adjudicate.

Stand. Umpire has to watch the man on the mark as well as the kicker. Impossible. Watch what happens in a Hawthorn game.... Their MotM is all over the place. Never pinged. Again I go back to the pies game. In the backline Moore took a mark, goes back, takes 2 steps right, 3 steps left, still no play on call. There's no interpretation there, he's off his mark, twice.

I'd be surprised if the AFL and NRL didn't have the same 'advisors'. They both came up with extremely dubious rule changes around the same time, that can change the game, purely on the ref/umpires discretion. Stand vs set restart.

Surely the AFL knows the game is impossible to adjudicate as it is, yet they keep piling new stupidity on top. Where does it end? And more importantly, why? Tactics evolve on their own.

A perfect example of this is going back to what I think Sue said before with the hands in the back rule. The rule was always no push in the back, until Alistair Lynch was so good at hiding his pushes in the back they had to change it to hands in the back. Now we're full circle and it's back to pushes, yet at every contest, it's less clear which way a free kick should be paid.

Just watched a Euro game between Denmark and Belgium. A Dane goes down in the box and gets carded for diving. Didn't look like a dive, but the replay showed no contact. Dive. Geez those professional refs are the goods.... Ow abou i Gil.

It's a professional sport with millions punted on it annually. It's an absolute farce that umpires aren't professional. It really shouldn't be legal to bet on it. Can you imagine where horseracing would be without professional stewards? It's hard enough to keep the [censored] honest anyway. I worked in a stable years ago, I know.

10 hours ago, Pates said:

Them not being professional, and thus paid as a professional, is an interesting debate.

Will they get decisions right more often? I’m not sure they would, as I think one the biggest issues they face is the AFL rules committee tinkering with interpretations every bloody year. 

Will it change the scrutiny of the decisions they make? Likely yes, in a way that the media will harp on them being “professional umpires, and these mistakes shouldn’t happen”. Look at the FIFA World Cup, referees still get heavily criticised for the decisions they make but they are meant to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD. 

I’m not saying they shouldn’t go professional, but I don’t see it necessarily changing a whole lot. 

I totally agree Pates. I think I was just highlighting that in my opinion it’s not a quirk of the AFL. I think the league likes to have the umps appear like impartial amateurs doing their best, but ideally out of the spotlight.

I notice that Eleni Gouftlas has disappeared, oddly right about the same time her boyfriend proposed to her on the ground. I only highlight this to show that the AFL don’t want umpires to have any extra spotlight. Keep em in the shadows - where they belong.

Worse than this was the d/^hea$ pies supporter behind me who called out every frre for us. Especially the ones paid on the opposite wing to our seats. Given we were fairly high up in the o reilly stand this bloke must have the greatest eyesight in the world.

Ahh Pies supporters...they truly are a class of their own.

A much lower one.?

Always a memorable game with them I guess.

51 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

I totally agree Pates. I think I was just highlighting that in my opinion it’s not a quirk of the AFL. I think the league likes to have the umps appear like impartial amateurs doing their best, but ideally out of the spotlight.

I notice that Eleni Gouftlas has disappeared, oddly right about the same time her boyfriend proposed to her on the ground. I only highlight this to show that the AFL don’t want umpires to have any extra spotlight. Keep em in the shadows - where they belong.

*glouftsis