The whole umpire contact issue this year has been the biggest joke.
Umpires desperately need to toughen up and stop stealing the focus from the game itself - they're there to adjudicate the game, not create major parts of it.
Soon it’s going to get to the point where players need to give more attention to where they think the umpire, not the ball, may be moving to.
Only when the AFL stops this weak rubbish (eg. ‘The players have a duty of care to the umpires.’ – what a joke) can people begin to, in some form of the word, respect the umpires.
Umpires (and perhaps the rules) need to go back to the way they were:
This is the way it should be.
