I have a mate who is an AFL umpire and I gave him a gentle ribbing and said the dees would have won more than 15 straight if it wasn't for the umpires.

He opened up about  it and said their training hours have been halved for them 

They can no longer train in Carlton which had the appropriate facilities and they need to train at Marvel where they are not allowed on the turf and are made to just stay on the Astro outside the boundary line.

I'm often critical of the umpires but they have to make split second decisions, unlike the MRP who have the opportunity to watch as many replays as they want but are still inconsistent.

From what I understand there a number of umpires retiring at the end of the year and the AFL is panicking and hence bought in you can't throw up your arms rule if you disagree with a free kick. Pretending they care.

What a [censored] joke. Maybe have them train on someone's nature strip? It's grass after all.

Opportunity here for the mighty MFC to curry favour and invite them to train at Casey, or Gosch's when it's ready.

10 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

 

Opportunity here for the mighty MFC to curry favour and invite them to train at Casey, or Gosch's when it's ready.

it most certainly would not hurt,   they actually are human,   well    some of them.

I was a club umpire for a few years, interesting time,   but I ran a commentary through my head as I watched the play, and paid what ever frees kicks I called to myself.

Marks I used the thought, if I had done this would I be disappointed not to get the mark ? 

Got some good results and a very few bad,  most of the older players just pleased to have an umpire so they could have a game.

Wish I felt fit enough to run around, bump someone and kick the footy,   I could walk around but someone would have to hand the ball to me, and I could kick it over a tin can but not much more.

 

And we need as much favour as we can , fancy the reigning premier and top of the table not being on the free TV for 3 or 4 weeks something wrong here. We must get a bleeding good run later in the year.

Go Dees   B2B in 2022

26 minutes ago, Wrecker46 said:

they need to train at Marvel where they are not allowed on the turf and are made to just stay on the Astro outside the boundary line.

That's ridiculous...how do they practice bouncing the ball? how do boundary umpires practice throwing the ball in? field umpires practice positioning?

Surely they must have somewhere else to practice these & other ground skills?

If they don't it means they are having to practice on the job which is nowhere near optimal.

 

57 minutes ago, Wrecker46 said:

I have a mate who is an AFL umpire and I gave him a gentle ribbing and said the dees would have won more than 15 straight if it wasn't for the umpires.

He opened up about  it and said their training hours have been halved for them 

They can no longer train in Carlton which had the appropriate facilities and they need to train at Marvel where they are not allowed on the turf and are made to just stay on the Astro outside the boundary line.

I'm often critical of the umpires but they have to make split second decisions, unlike the MRP who have the opportunity to watch as many replays as they want but are still inconsistent.

From what I understand there a number of umpires retiring at the end of the year and the AFL is panicking and hence bought in you can't throw up your arms rule if you disagree with a free kick. Pretending they care.

I used to work at the Doug Ellis pool at Monash Uni and the umps were on the oval outside the pool every week on a Thursday night I think it was. With their being about a thousand public suburban and semi private ovals why can't they practice on any one of those. Goshes for example may be an option? Gym work can be done at one of the million gyms around the city and video review at AFL HQ?

Hey the Demons have been the Travelling Wilburys for ever and a day why not the umps?

What an absolute joke is the AFL - complaining in the one hand that the umpires are not respected, then show them this degree is disrespect themselves by not offering appropriate training facilities.  
And then of course introduce the absurd disrespect rule that only serves to engender disrespect further   
What a lack of amateurs - highly paid of course.  

The abysmal AFL attitude to umpires is highlighted in this article:  football-s-forgotten-figures-the-umpiring-crisis-threatening-the-game

They have been shunted from reasonable (sort of) training facilities to virtually nothing.  It is a blight on the AFL who surely aren't serious about improving the lot of umpires if they continue to treat them as third class stakeholders.

28 minutes ago, monoccular said:

What a lack of amateurs - highly paid of course.  

 

10 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

They have been shunted from reasonable (sort of) training facilities to virtually nothing.

 

Umps / AFL. Which ones are the real amateurs?

How do you expect the public to respect umpires when the AFL have shown a blatant lack of respect themselves? This is pathetic. 

Good article in last weeks Good weekend in the Age, regarding umpires and abuse. Worth a look, 

The lack of support for umpires is evident at every level of the game, from club juniors through to the AFL.

The Caroline Wilson article makes it clear that the AFL's attitude towards umpires is the worst of all. At least junior comps can blame lack of money and resources, the AFL has no excuse.

How do they possibly expect to attract and retain the best umpires if they won't support them?

3 hours ago, poita said:

The lack of support for umpires is evident at every level of the game, from club juniors through to the AFL.

The Caroline Wilson article makes it clear that the AFL's attitude towards umpires is the worst of all. At least junior comps can blame lack of money and resources, the AFL has no excuse.

How do they possibly expect to attract and retain the best umpires if they won't support them?

"....How do they possibly expect to attract and retain the best umpires if they won't support them?..."

Let's think - "..oh, I know, we could make a rule that umpires' decisions must be respected ...  add a 50 m penalty, even if they just wave their arms around  .... that will surely be enough".  How could that possibly not attract more into umpiring?

As I said before, pack of overpaid amateurs running the show

Edited May 20, 20223 yr by monoccular

5 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

The abysmal AFL attitude to umpires is highlighted in this article:  football-s-forgotten-figures-the-umpiring-crisis-threatening-the-game

They have been shunted from reasonable (sort of) training facilities to virtually nothing.  It is a blight on the AFL who surely aren't serious about improving the lot of umpires if they continue to treat them as third class stakeholders.

Good article 'Lucifer'...Caro is a very good journalist no matter what popular opinion would have us believe.

It's a pity more didn't jump on board this issue rather than the pathetic Shiel/Parker thing last week.

Although with most of the AFL media it's more about not biting the hand that feeds.

Yet another example, one of so many, that Gil’s job performance is massively overrated and that his replacement must come from outside of his pathetic cronies.

Actually I am some what surprised that there is not an Academy or Institute for umpires.

On 'Talking Footy' just now, discussion of umpires becoming 'full time' revealed many were now already virtually full time, only some have other jobs, and the average(?) umpiring income was $150,000.

I guess the discussion about 'professionalism', then, should focus on the use of that 'full' time to become truly 'professional' in performance.