FireInTheBennelly

He umpired the first 3 rounds alongside 'the Raz' and then wasn't seen again until last week. One too many over-rules from 50m away of his poor decisions? I'm sure every over-rule is like a blow to the head for these clowns. It looks as though the AFL was trialling umpire 'teams' in the first 3 rounds. I only had a quick look but the games I saw had the same 3 umpires together week on week. Obviously failed in whatever measure they were testing, I wonder what that may have been.

Another interesting point. Pannell had an extended break from umpiring this season for whatever reason. This will be his 2nd game back, meaning both games umpiring us.

I'm assuming Nicholls was unavailable as he needs to be in Brisbane to get the Blues over the line.

Dumb and Dumber?

Quite the quinella isn't it. Incredible. http://aflua.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Round-16-2018.pdf

Given that this week we've been handed Razor Ray and Pannell to deal with, I think it's quite appropriate to start the thread prior to the game. We'll need to be a 15 goal better side to win this, so the Freo odds are very juicy.

There's none left, they drank it all last week.

Turn up?

Fair points

Very good MR, however I have to pull you up on the bolded section. I know for a fact the 2016 event was held at Whitten Oval.

There was an absolute ripper of these in the Collingwood game. Whistle went, free kick Pies, all players kept following the Pie with the pill. Seconds go by, Pie looks around and slows down to go back for the free, no advantage call so our boys stopped. Advantage, advantage. Pies clear through on goal. I'm going to blame that call for the half time 50 against Clarry. Yes he might've taken it too far, but if he doesn't make that tackle the Saints can just go. I'd love to see a replay. After paying the free, did the ump blow his whistle to pull the game up, or did he wait to see what would happen, putting doubt in Clarry's mind on an advantage call. Play the whistle, no whistle = stick the tackle. The other side of the coin is, Clarry was penalised for tackling the player after the play had 'stopped'. Wasn't there a centre bounce recalled in the first qrtr where Longer poleaxed Gawn? Shouldn't that also be a free kick? I was listening on the radio at that point so didn't see vision.

No. That's a throw.

Imagine Ablett, or any Cats player, complaining that an oppo player has dropped his knees and drawn the 'in the back' free kick. They are the undisputed experts at it.

I don't think Rance is acting. He might just be the softest player in the history of sport.

Take it to the draft, we're starting to see a turnaround in the fortunes of the number 31.

Didn't that used to be called 'a shirtfront'?

How do we fix it?

That's great, so what went wrong?

Well, well, well. We win by 100 now.

Wasn't it him that laid out Brayshaw in the VFL last year?

What price first centre bounce, whistle, free kick Port?

To be followed by Ling with 'Yeah exactly right Bruce!' His BT version is a good one also.

Must be good for the environment?

I did it last year early on the piece, but the laptop I was using fried the hard drive so I no longer have the analysis and I CBF doing it again. It certainly showed there potentially were umpires 'favouring' different teams and vice versa, however there's no real way of knowing without identifying each individual umpires free kicks. Of the one's I consider the big three, Razor, Pannell and Nicholls, 2 of them were generally involved in negative counts for us, but one of them was definitely a big positive. I thought it was very strange at the time, and I can't remember which one it was. Like I say I've lost all the stuff, however I do have AFL umpire appointments data from 2015 to an early round last year. I initially asked the AFLUA for it, but they flicked me off to the Victorian Library or something. Thought that was quite odd as well.

They have to get it right eventually don't they? He's definitely due to rip one apart.