Adam Bailey
DeanoHarmoMichael's Musings - AFL Umpiring
June 6th 2007 08:38
Category: No Category
Well, the subject of AFL umpiring has certainly dominated the sporting news headlines of late. It’s been an issue for a while, but events on Saturday night at the SCG, with the controversial one-point win to the Bombers and the Sydney crowd booing and abusing the umpires and continuing to boo Essendon captain Matthew Lloyd at the presentation of the Marn Grook Trophy has brought it to a head.
The last Essendon goal came from Mark McVeigh, after being set up by Adam McPhee, but replays showed McPhee clearly out of bounds while in possession of the football.
How was such a clear call not made? It turned out the umpire was a long way behind the play – Essendon quickly switched play to the members’ wing, and the umpire was caught out of position. As such, his view was obscured by players chasing McPhee, and he has no way of seeing whether the ball was over the boundary line.
A solution that has been considered is to have 4 boundary umpires, so if one umpire is out of position the other on each side is able to get a better view. Would it have made the correct call this time? In all probability it would have.
Umpires’ boss Jeff Geischen has admitted the idea has been floated, and it would be a question of a cost-benefit analysis from the AFL. But in this era where the AFL is making hundreds of millions of dollars from the AFL and players’ careers and livelihoods can be made or broken on a single umpiring decision, surely no price is too high to pay to get it right.
The events of last Saturday night has also drawn attention again on the controversial new push-in-the-back law. Several times on Saturday, Barry Hall had marks disallowed after seemingly the softest of push-outs. It’s a theme that has happened many times this season. The week before, Richmond’s Matthew Richardson had a goal disallowed under similar circumstances which would likely have won the Tigers the match.
Is the rule change justified? Gone are the days when the sole priority was to get the ball; and the mark over-riding the free kick. In the past, a player almost could do whatever he liked in a marking contest as long as he took the ball. The new rule seems to have resulted in a higher number of soft free kicks given and marks disallowed, and going for the ball is no longer priority number one. If the player fails to take the mark, then by all means he should be heavily penalised. But in a one-out contest, taking the mark should be the benchmark.
In turn, the new rule will inevitably encourage diving and simulation of push-outs. In soccer, diving has become a cancer. We’ve seen countless instances of divers being rewarded – Australia’s injury-time loss to Italy in the World Cup quarter-finals being a prime example. And other games have seen diving turn matches from a footballing contest into a farce – such as the Australia v Bahrain Asia Cup qualifier or the Sydney FC v Shanghai Shenhua Asian Champions League match last month. Do we want AFL to go the same way?
The rule change is a dud. Get rid of it, give us proper marking contests back.
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