No question we have a major problem with the quality of umpiring, which feeds through to lack of decision making consistency and that in turn drives players, coaches and fans nuts.
 

The AFL seems to be in denial about this and the focus on stopping players from disputing decisions seems to be tackling the problem from the wrong end. If the AFL instead focussed on addressing umpiring quality, better umpiring should by default lead to  more respect for umpires and less disputed decisions. 
 

Watching Eddie last night spew out his plethora of solutions is a consequence  of the AFL seeming to have no plan on how to address the issue of umpiring quality. There’s been rumours of Eddie being interested in an AFL Commission spot and even the AFL CEO role.  Last night’s diatribe felt like Eddie was positioning himself for a more formal tilt at one of those positions.  

5 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Good idea. The central umps often defer to goal umps in terms of "what happened". They get input from the goal ump then make their decision.

The boundary ump could indicate when there's been a throw. Central ump makes the call but the boundary ump can give hints.

The AFL & Chan 7 would not allow it going by Footscray's game. All those stops for throws. Will never happen.

I like it.

There's a few holes in it but some excellent suggestions ... as well as a few suggestions that I struggle to agree with

I reckon a watered down version would be better

The 4 sectors makes sense but you'd maybe keep the boundary umpires and let the 4 umpires adjudicate on onfield decisions only

The boundary umpires can remain a part time job ongoing.  Boundary umpiring is for the fitness fanatics so let them continue and you don't have to pay them top dollar

The teams of umpires also has merit and the goal umpires and field umpires swapping roles could work ... having 2 goal umpires at each end makes the job of the goal umpires much easier.  Just standing next to the goal post seems easy enough

I don't agree with the goals and behinds scored being tampered with ... touched ball remains a point as does hitting the post in my view

But overall, I like Eddie's idea for change

And the sport should be able to afford full time umpires ... pay them a lot more and get the umpiring squads to do 2 games as Eddie suggested

I had trouble umpiring primary school games while working for the AFL in Southern NSW because of of all the special rules for kids

What must it be like for a young person trying to get involved with umpiring with all the different rules at various levels

Country umpires must hate the new rules continuing to be pushed on them that are so far removed from the game they grew up with