Webber

Yes they will give you the AZ if you ask.

As a health professional, I’m getting very f*****g angry about both the federal government’s half-arsed rollout, not to mention their incompetence at negating false information in the media, and some people’s utter selfishness and lack of community responsibility in ‘delaying’ their own vax for selfish or ignorant reasons. There is only ONE way to reduce the broader societal impact of this virus. ONE. Herd immunity through vaccination. If you can, GET VACCINATED!!!! It’s your civic duty, if nothing else. The Exhibition Building mass vax centre is populated by vaccinators doing sweet F A too much of the day.

As we are with Clarry. No Oliver, no Dees I suspect, as evidenced against Crows.

Pretty compelling......almost like there’s a problem that deserves a solution.

They did look at it, without saying so, a few years ago when the media started getting antsy about the West Coast home ground imbalance. Since then West Coast’s Perth free kick disparity has evened up hugely. This proves they can attend to the problem. As we know, outside of West Coast games, it’s slipped horribly this year. I suspect it’s an umpire personality issue. Like players, umpires need to be picked for their ability to handle, if not be immune to FUHCI (Frank Unconscious Home Crowd Influence). If they can be coached into that immunity, which I’m sure many can, more’s the better.

So correct MR, yet so hard to eradicate....

We should all celebrate the fact that the AFL have admitted the mistake. It’s a first step. Now that there’s been 3 games in 10 rounds where results have been altered by circumstances reflecting the same issue - let’s call it ‘unconscious home crowd influence’ (UHCI for short, add an ‘F’ on the front, and ‘FUHCI’ seems appropriate), they need to admit that it’s an endemic problem to be urgently addressed. In the same breath, they should admit that umpiring standards and clarity of laws haven’t evolved with the game as a whole, and in fact are currently a blight on the game, then humbly admit to their TOTAL responsibility for the fact. In particular, they can highlight and admit to there being NO consistency around adjudications of tackling, possession (or not) and disposal (or not), but that there are patently many more areas of concern. Thusly, they announce that they’ve put together a task force of ex and current players and umpires and astute commentators/analysts of the game (Demonland included) who are either impartial or represent their clubs in equal proportion to seek fast and sustainable improvement. Without delay however, and before any other change, umpires will now be full-time professionals, including boundary umpires, who will be given the same adjudication status as field umpires. And we go from there....

Perfectly put sue.

I haven’t discussed our performance last night, so I’m not sure who you’re talking to. I have been discussing the performance of the umpires, and that ‘control’ of their performance must be improved by the central body, the AFL, simply because the individual clubs who by volume of their support - us - are both the reason the game exists and its primary stakeholders. Of course we coulda shoulda woulda been better to have put ourselves beyond the umpires. I said precisely that in the gameday thread. Let the homecrowd influence in, and its worth 1-2 goals a quarter. Once again, this is about bad umpiring adversely our game, the one that all 18 clubs play. I want to let the players play, and make themselves better. I do NOT want bad umpiring to continue to diminish our game. These are separate issues.

I suspect that’s almost too sensible, binman.

Which is a different topic, and has literally nothing to do with the state of umpiring, which is desperately in need of change.

You can call it the “end of story” all you like NC, in that ridiculously certain manner, but the ‘certainty’ of Saturday’s result was indisputably altered by the umpiring. The idea that umpires cheat is perhaps equally ridiculous, but to say that umpires aren’t responsible for or at least complicit in their own poor performances, and that such performances alter results, is wrong.

It’s in fact still the perfect example I reckon Scoop Junior. It would be nice to imagine the umpire coaching scenario - a video tutorial, where the footage is played (no crowd noise, no game context) and the teacher asks - ‘what’s the call here?’ To which the answer is of course obvious. The teacher’s ‘sting’ is to then say that no call was made, and ask his pupils ‘why?’ Turn on the crowd noise, add the context of scores and time left in the game, and there’s only one possible answer. This is preventable I believe, if umps are specifically coached or even chosen for an ability to ‘shut out’ those factors. They are however part-timers and the AFL has expressed no will or even desire to eliminate these crowd-caused results. As binman has suggested, they’re attractive as attention-grabbers. They also keep the ‘fortress’ locals happy - basically all the non-Vic teams (excluding Suns and Giants perhaps) and Geelong.

True that. And if they’re prepared to deflect from the problem, or bury it, as the Hun are reporting (today) in saying they’ll admit to the mistake only as part of their ‘Monday review’, then there’s nothing surer than when it happens in a GF - and it will - that there’ll be a meltdown. What will be their answer to the question - ‘what have you done to eliminate this blight on our game?’ Games should not be decided by bad umpiring, yet they are, and nothing changes. The AFL need to overhaul the way this game is adjudicated. I was watching the North v Pies game a few weeks ago, Zurhaar was running toward his attacking goal from the flank, and had a shot toward the empty goal. The ball skewed horribly of the side of his boot, and went OOB in the pocket. He had a free kick paid against him. In my speechless amazement, I had a calming thought .... well, that’ll never happen again. You know, “learnings” by the umpies. Lo and behold, Charlie Spargo gets pinged for the same ‘non-offence’ on Saturday. I simply don’t get why such rank incompetence at the nuts and bolts level of umpiring goes unaddressed. Maybe it will take a robbed premiership, or a chance at it from the prelim to change things....the “calamity first” principle (change only happens when the consequences of not changing are ‘calamitous’, not just theorised as such - witness climate change). I’ve said it before, and I’m starting to bore myself, but I can’t think of a game worldwide, particularly at such an elevated professional level, that’s so sloppily adjudicated.

I shudder to think that you may be onto something binman, but of course it’s possible. It would however mean that the future of the game is in terminal trouble. As for the Spargo ‘deflection’ being used by some to justify the non-decision, spare me!

Isn’t that the point though, dee-tox? The default belief that umpiring can’t be “controlled” is next to just accepting its mediocrity. It should be better, so we can all - players, supporters, umpires - enjoy the game more. Obviously it means more when your team is on the s**t end of it, but I can equally say that my enjoyment of non-Dees games this year has been ruined by bad umpiring. Of course the team will give it no consideration because of that lack of influence, but that shouldn’t leave it unexamined by those who should be responsible for improving it. It is THE rubbish part of our game.

You’re dead on Redleg. Why those in charge of the game continue to let it be a blight is baffling. Unfortunately, I believe it’s by far the worst aspect of our great game. As an indication that change is possible, we’ve seen an obvious and successful attempt to stop the ridiculous umpiring imbalance in Perth in the last few years. Last night was disgraceful, as was the Geelong v Brisbane ‘incorrect disposal’ shambles (Blicavs) and the Swans v Geelong ‘not 15’ madness (Cameron). All 3 games should have had different results.

It was beyond bad, it was inconceivable, the most obvious deliberate out of bounds I can ever remember seeing. The easiest call an umpire could ever make, and if not for the sentiment of home-crowd influence, it would have been made. Unacceptable.

That is crazy. Nobody will ever want to umpire. The point you make about umpires not being full-time is the biggest issue. They should be, and they and the game would be better for it.

Actually it WAS why we lost. And that’s ok, on a long enough time-line it all evens out. The bigger point is that there’s no reconciling the abominable contradictions in last night’s umpiring that gifted the Crows the win, because it reflects what is the greatest blight on our game - the quality of umpiring. Not forgetting that the size of ground, speed of play and multi-directional nature of our game makes it difficult, it just has to get better. Ignoring the ‘out of bounds’ shambles for a bit, the adjudication of the ‘tackle rule’ - the essence of the game’s physical contact - is a complete shambles, an utter 50/50 mess in any given situation. The home-crowd influence factor is equally egregious, and it was on sparkling display last night. How and why the umpires can’t be specifically coached in how not to fall prey to this baffles me. They’ve corrected it to a large extent in Perth over the last couple of years, but last night was an embarrassment to the game. Bad/unbalanced umpiring determined last night’s result. It’s that simple, and it shouldn’t happen.

The standard of umpiring, and the fact that the AFL appear to have no plan to improve it, is frankly the biggest disappointment of our game. 3 results this year have categorically been determined by poor umpiring - Geelong v Brisbane, Swans v Geelong, and Adelaide v Melbourne. These change seasons, and can obviously ultimately affect final ladder positions. If I was an external observer of the game, or a newbie to it, I’d find it comically odd. The Charlie Spargo deliberate OOB, and then the dying seconds non-decision OOB are irreconcilable. This just shouldn’t happen in a game that has so much hard-earned involved, and it’s become a woeful, unacceptable blight.

The regrettable truth is that umpires are human. Many of them simply can’t avoid letting the crowd influence their decisions, and it’s on the AFL to create better standards of umpiring by selecting those who can reliably arbitrate with balance regardless of the context. “The loss we had to have”, “didn’t play well”, “missed too many opportunities”, all of that is true. The greater truth, and it is objectively unavoidable, is that bad umpiring determined the result of that game. Given that every team cops it over a long enough timeline, we of course have to just suck it up. None of which changes the fact that umpiring standards are the biggest, most disappointing blight on Australian Football, no less than at the highest level.

That is absolute rubbish, and I suspect you really know it.

Bad umpiring makes a joke of our great game. Frankly embarrassing.

Except that the Crows are playing excellent, high pressure, fast footy.