sue

That's a mysterious statement. Care to expand?

BTW I note that the AFL site states that he hit him with an open hand both times. Has anyone seen any video which shows that or is the AFL up to its usual tricks? Seemed to me the video was unclear , but that Cotchin's reaction made fist most likely. edit:add missing words

I suppose if his appeal fails he will be out for 2 weeks automatically? If so, I have no doubt they will get him off.

Cotchin hardly bothered ?! Then Cotchin should be fined for overacting since he acted as if he was hit with enough force to knock most of us over.

I thought this was a joke. I even went to the AFL site just in case it wasn't. Talk about parallel universes.

Slapping someone once in the heat of the moment is bad enough, but a second go at the head (even if it wasn't a punch) is surely beyond the pale. But nothing is beyond the AFL.

Despite all the negative factors about our performance that have been dicussed, if we had kicked the first goal in the last quarter (which almost happened) it is possible we could have gone on to win. But when Freo got it, I suspect the mental attitude of our players went south and they started to think a loss has to happen, players out etc and threw in the towel. Impossible to prove of course. A win in that match would have made us unrealistically arrogant. So maybe good we didn't get that goal.

Au contraire. Just think of instant coffee as a completely different beverage rather than a poor imitation. Then quality matters.

Could be that he felt OK by the time the match was to start but as soon as he started to exert himself it took its toll. Hard to judge sometimes and since we don't really know what he was suffering from (?) impossible for us to know where the blame, if any, lies.

Brown seemed to have forgotten to lead. He was consistently grappled with when the tried to get to a pack to mark.

thanks for taking the time to reply RL. I'm afraid I can't agree. At the risk of being seen as a dog with a bone, I can only repeat my contention that causing a delay in the player being able to take his kick after the siren can be an advantage to the defending side in loading the goal line. Hence there should be a potential penalty for delaying the return of the ball to the kicker. (I'm not saying that necessarily applied last night.) I'll go and bury my bone now.

I certainly agree with your second sentence RL. But I don't see that the '1 second' affects my position on the general principle. To keep clear of the 'player didn't know' complication, what about a situation where the player on the mark clearly knows the free has been paid, but deliberately takes too long to return it to the kicker to gain the advantage I mentioned.

I don't have a problem with the decision in the circumstances. But you seem to be missing my point in your defense of the decision. I maintain as a general principle it is a disadvantage to the team with the free for there to be time for the defence to organise itself. If the defending team stops the ball going through the goals, they win. If they don't have anyone on the goal line and the ball just makes the distance, they lose. If they don't have time to get players on the goal line it's more likely they will lose. For example, if a player 50m out knows he can't kick that far at sufficient height to clear the pack, it's to his advantage to kick asap before the goal line in manned. Also shepherding on the line is permitted by the team with the free. So there is more to the game than just the kick. Leaving aside whether that individual decision last night was correct in the circumstances, do you disagree with the above? If so, please point out where it is wrong because I don't see that your previous posts address that. On a slightly different point, but relevant to this: I do not see why umpires advise players about not going off the line (or coming back onto it) for a kick after the siren. Surely the players should know the rules. Maybe the umpires will be continually shouting "don't push in the back, don't tackle above the shoulder, don't punch your oppponent in the chin"?

True, but if the ball is kicked into the stands there is the real possibility of delay before the kick can be taken. During that time the defending team can set up better to guard the goals than they might have otherwise had time to do. Are we talking about the same thing?

The play of the defending team having extra time to get all their tall players on the goal line. (OK, I'll drop the human pyramid idea.) Plus their attempts to stop the ball going through. All part of play I'd suppose.

Exactly why I asked the question rhetorically. If a player creeps over the mark to interfere with a kick after the siren, then clearly that has to be penalised. So 50's can be paid after the siren. And a delay in getting a ball allows a defending team to form a human pyramid on the goal line. So strict accordance with the rules means there should have been a 50 paid. But strict accordance with the rules is not always practised by the AFL and may have been appropriate for once. I'm not sure if the umps even raised their arms to indicate they'd heard the siren?

If the player on the mark steps forward over the mark a 50 would be paid even if the siren had gone before the kick. No?

Yes it will be interesting to have a good look at the second one. If it wasn’t a fist Cotchin should be got for over acting. But commentators were straight into excuses.

I agree with Tiers. There are too many frees and 50m penalties given for things which do not affect the play. Admittedly some frees, like seeing a minor jumper pull make it easy for the umpire to make a decision without having to judge if it had an effect. On the other hand, umps have to judge if a touch to a shoulder was really there or if there was a 2mm gap between hand and shoulder. So you could argue it's easier for the ump to judge by the effect rather than trying to judge if the hand actually touched the shoulder. Placing more burden on the umps may not be a good thing given the shoddy way the AFL treats the whole area now. And as usual there will be grey areas. But it might be worth a trial at an appropriate level before thinking of introducing it at the highest level - a novel idea for the AFL.

Macca, you claim to only post in response to the whingers etc, but your recent post about the tiny proportion of possessions represented by frees came out of the blue (and in my view was a meaningless misuse of statistics regardless of one's view of umpiring). You claim that I: But of course you're not repeating yourself, you're just trying to set people straight. That wording smacks of arrogance. I think it's ignore time.

Pot kettle

Simplistic use of statistics like that is not convincing. You could use the same argument to say there is no point in umpires giving free kicks at all. And be just as wrong.

Nothing about slinging. So another example of the AFL having a "interpretations" rather than clear consistently applied rules?

I'll try to avoid getting into an infinite loop with you on this, but the reason you can't think of any other sport with so much discussion about the umpiring is because (as far as I know) there is no other sport which is so difficult to umpire. Hence creating grounds for discussion. The poorly written rules and intepretations don't help either. Those of us who don't like that discussion can avoid it easily enough.

Umpires have never been so loose with where the mark is as they are now. Have a look at some old matches. I don't see why discussing the rules and the umpires difficulties with them is not an appropriate subject for discussion. Especially for those of us reduced to only seeing games on TV. It is one of the things we can see and comment on. I wouldn't dare comment on anything to do with player positioning/strategy etc because I can't see it. But I do know if players shaved closely that morning, so I could discuss that.