sue

That's one of the many problems with this. With most frees and other 50m penalties, the spectator has some basis on which to form an opinion (however wrong) on why it was paid or not.

The basic difference bewteen the 2 sides in this debate is that some of us do not see what is wrong with telling everyone that you think the umpire is wrong as long as you don't do it abusively. I don't feel disrespected when you disagree on this with me, and I trust you feel the same. At bottom the only argument for stamping all emotion out of it seems to be that we can't recruit junior umpires because they get abused. Has the AFL examined all ways of fixing that? Or even respecting senior umpires by paying them like they pay themselves at Head Office? No, they have put bugger-all effort into junior footy because there is no short-term money in it.

My apologies if circular is not be exactly the right word, but you said the junior umps had to do 3 to 4 matches per weekend. I was simply saying if we had the missing 6000 umpires, they would not have to do so many matches each. So you were being inconsistent/circular/over-egging the problem/whatever is the right word for the logical error you were making. Nothing to do with rocket science or rot or indeed the issue.

I don't know enough about the age profiles of junior to more senior umpires, and thus what the wage scale should be to be attractive at each level, but I reckon a lot of young kids would be keen to get $500 or less. And your argument is circular - if we had the 6000 missing umpires, no one would need to umpire 3-4 games per weekend. As for starting at the top, how about the AFL showing some respect to umpires by paying them professionally FT. The abuse from parents can be dealt by other means, eg. if you abuse an umpire, your kid is suspended for the day, week whatever. Sadly the AFL can't improve the weather.

And maybe they could show their respect of umpires by paying them properly! They could even pay $500 a year to all those 6000 missing junior umpires by taking a few paycuts.

You are probably right that the players can in time be terrified into almost any behaviour by penalising the team. But arguing with the ump is not the same as expressing disagreement/frustration or asking for clarification in a non-abusive way. But that is what the AFL's 'rules' are trying to equate. And umps will still be abused by the crowd. Only more so if players get 50m penalities for rolling their eyes. If this is all driven by the lack of junior umpires, how about making umpiring a career path by paying them generously at many levels. Young kids who can run but know they will never be good players will be attracted to the possibility of making it in the bigger leagues as umpires. Good luck getting umps to judge all those distances. They have enough trouble with 15m. (Sorry, that was disrespectful.) 25m and 50m makes sense.

An excellent point.

My use of the term 'arm raising' was just shorthand to describe reactions to an umpire's decision or non-decision that is non-abusive. You have been consistently using the term abuse to cover any reaction at all by a player. Hence my 'yet again'. One can disagree without being abusive in life and on the sports field too.

Yet again you conflate things like arm raising with abuse. Everyone here seems to be against abuse. Some of us see a big gap between raising arms or rolling eyes and abuse. Making them equivalent makes umpires look ridiculous which is hardly a recipe for increasing respect.

I don’t recall anyone here supporting umpire abuse. I disagree with you on this. My arms are wide out and I’m rolling my eyes. I hope you don’t feel abused.

Is it dissent/umpire disrespect to call for a free when the umpire has ruled there was none? A ball comes off a Hawthorn player's boot and goes out. Umpire calls for a throw in, but Geelong player takes the ball and steps back to take position for a DOB free. Obviously disagreeing with the umpire's decision. In fact the AFL could argue that any indication that a free should be paid to a player's team is disrespecting the umpire or seeking to bully him.

At one point a free was paid to Hawks and it looked to me like Hawkins started mouthing off to the umpire but quickly turned his head to a seemingly random Hawthorn player. A cunning bastard.

Thanks to the AFL

What a farce.

I just cannot see how raising your arms or looking upwards to the sky to indicate your disagreement with a decision is abusive or is necessarily even disrespectful. Or why any umpire with an ounce of self-confidence would feel hard-done by a player exhibiting disagreement. Disagreement doesn't mean the other person thinks you are an [censored], just mistaken. For example, the free paid against Petty for that excellent spoil. I could see that the umpire may have been mislead into thinking Petty hit the GWS player's head (as did many posters here) when in fact it was the footy that hit his head. If I (or had Petty) indicated disagreement it does not mean we think the umpire was an [censored]. Just wrong. Which is easy to be given the speed or the game, the vague rules and the fact that umpires are not equipped with 360 degree slo-mo vision. If the current umpires are such precious petals that disagreement is too much for them, I expect properly paid full-time employment may help them get over it. (Abuse is another matter.) I think umpiring issues at junior levels can be addressed by other means than requiring AFL players to behave like robots.

That is part of the problem. The spectator has no way to know what the decision was based on. For other penalties we do have at least something to go on.

Well you are being consistent if you apply it to all sorts of tackles. I thought you were singling out run-down tackles and that you'd have to give a run down tackle special status compared to other tackles. And if you did, then you are introducing yet another grey area into the umpiring in deciding whether a tackle is rundown or merely a bit of a separation before the tackle. My memory isn't great, but I don't recall there has ever been a time when prior opportunity has been so rigourously applied as you suggest in the 80's. Seems to me you were always allowed to dispose of it, though maybe 360 degree rotations were penalised more.

Neither hold a candle to Brown, so one must go. But I wondered if Goodwin was pumping up Weid's tyres to soften the blow of not picking him next week. We shall see.

IMO if this nonsense continues it will lead to more disrepect for umpires. We already are frustrated by bad decisions, but at least we understand how hard the game is to umpire AND we can see what happened. (I don't know how many times I have had to eat my words when the replay of a free is shown, as well as vice versa.) But with respect to 'respect', we have no idea if the player called the ump a [censored] or just expressed disappointment, verbally or otherwise and with whom. How is continuing to ask for a free which the umpire says is not there less respectful than indicating you thought a free was wrongly given. And so inconsistent. I just can't see this settling down to something even vaguely preceived as consistent. Net result - less respect for umpires from the public.

Fraction of a toe? It was flush on his boot. Surely DS you are not calling for umpires to make a decision based on whether they think the ball was deliberately dropped onto the foot or 'falls out of his hands'. We don't need another new area for "insufficient intent" decisions.

True, but it's critical for a key forward to clunk them routinely. And Weid's follow-up work appears a bit slack.

Not just against us as others have detailed. One minor thing not mentioned is their failure to immediately line up Gawn on his shot for goal at around 17:00 of Q2. He marked the ball at 51m and was obviously going to have a shot but the ump initially stood with the 'stand' gesture 25m away before realising they had to run in to line him up.

Probably. And they won't be wrong either.

I wouldn't go as far as stabbing. But meddlesome umpire/AFL HQ seems very apt. I find it particulary humourous that the when they pay a free for the most flagrant deliberate OOB, the umpires now shout 'insufficient intent'. Would the player have avoided the penalty if they had been even more deliberate?

Who can rid me of this meddlesome umpiring?