9 hours ago, SadDee said:

Of course that’s annoying, and shouldn’t happen.

But I can put any money on the fact that I bet the team that last due to “a bad decision” made a load of mistakes, didn’t capitalize on shots on goal which could also have made the difference.

It’s not like you look at the scores card and see 0 turn overs and 21 goals straight and no points.

It’s like us against St Kilda this year. 7.21 scorecard.

Say an umpire made a mistake on the dying minute, and was wrong and “it cost us the game”. Surely you’re not blaming the umpire when we missed 21 points….

Both make mistakes, and both are human. Just not sure why it’s only seen that umpires can cost a team a game when usually the team could have also done won it on their own merit.

Okay. I see your point. Admittedly I notice player mistakes too. In the best game ever played I bet the successful team still made mistakes. I really don't know what to make of umpiring. It's impossible for it to be perfect and often the public should just shut up and not use it as a cop out for most of their team's losses. But if a player misses a shot from the goal square or an umpire does as bad with a dreadful decision it's fair enough for me to comment - even blame both in a close loss.. For both of them I'd hope there are coaches and supervisors to iron this stuff out, especially if attitude, poor technique or strategy or bias are to blame. (Oh, and I bet no coach and few players totally dismiss their part in a loss - even if they're cursing the umpire(s) and brooding on what might have been.)

On 20/07/2025 at 08:38, titan_uranus said:

Both decisions were poor IMO but relying on umpires in a close game against Carlton’s seconds is on us, not the umpires.

Exactly.

The closest I can get to an umpiring conspiracy these days is not really a conspiracy at all; it's just a problem of human nature. Nobody wants to be screamed at in their job. As an umpire you can't avoid it. But there are different levels of being screamed at. Three seconds of moderately loud booing is very different from the violent howling of a Carlton or Collingwood crowd. Or the victim complex crying of an Essendon crowd.

I have very little doubt, for example, that whether unconsciously or consciously, the umpire that failed to pay the deliberate with a few second to go in that Adelaide game where Clarry had an all-timer did so with crowd reaction in mind.

This doesn't explain, though, absolute disasters like the Kozzie trip near the start of the year and the Clarry holding the ball on Saturday night. Even the most one-eyed supporter understands that there's nothing ambiguous about a run-down tackle with no push in the back, or an ankle tap, so there's no need for an umpire to worry about being scolded by tens of thousands of people.

Anyway, my theory, which probably doesn't bear out when you look at entire seasons or longer periods of time, is the louder and more aggressive the crowd, the more likely they are to get a 50:50 go their way. Not a nineteenth man, but maybe one tenth, or one fiftieth, of an extra player.

35 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

Okay. I see your point. Admittedly I notice player mistakes too. In the best game ever played I bet the successful team still made mistakes. I really don't know what to make of umpiring. It's impossible for it to be perfect and often the public should just shut up and not use it as a cop out for most of their team's losses. But if a player misses a shot from the goal square or an umpire does as bad with a dreadful decision it's fair enough for me to comment - even blame both in a close loss.. For both of them I'd hope there are coaches and supervisors to iron this stuff out, especially if attitude, poor technique or strategy or bias are to blame. (Oh, and I bet no coach and few players totally dismiss their part in a loss - even if they're cursing the umpire(s) and brooding on what might have been.)

Oh, sorry. I think I’ve come across in a way where I don’t think we should comment on them.. that’s not it.

I just don’t think we should solely blame them when we miss heaps and make a lot of errors etc.

Umpiring certainly gets to me to, especially when it’s a close game and it could have decided it, but I just try to think, what could we have done better?

You’re bang on though. Frustrating when they can make such an impact or decide a game off a bad call.