Prior opportunity is the fly in the ointment

Over recent weeks I've become increasingly more disenchanted with current adjudication of the holding the ball/incorrect disposal rule.

There appears to be a chasm between what we see during the games each weekend and the explanations provided by the AFL's Umpiring Department. And, might I just note in passing that having Dwayne Russell do the voiceovers for the video explanations highlights nicely the gap of understanding when he is calling games and clearly has no idea why players have been free kicked.

See the Holding the Ball video here.

In viewing the video, it seems to me that the problems lie in the failure to define prior opportunity. How much time is enough time? One player will be free-kicked when tackled less than a second after receiving the ball, another will be able to swing through almost 360º whilst being tackled, often over two or three seconds, without being free-kicked.

The average AFL spectator has no idea. Crowds routinely howl "BAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" the moment a player is touched. Unfortunately, some umpires seem to feed this frenzy with apparently hair-trigger decisions.

The one things that seems clear, watching games, is that the Umpiring Department haven't offered umpires a 'template' for judging prior opportunity.

Is it a measure of the failure of zero-tolerance approaches in interpreting other rules that a template hasn't been provided? Whatever the case, blatant inconsistency does nothing to further the cause of umpires. As I've noted previously, I'm sure we'd all prefer a consistent interpretation, even if we disagree with the practical effect of a rule.

How about it, Jeff? Do you want to let the footballing public into the secret? How long is long enough for prior opportunity?

A second factor, actual disposal after being tackled, also seems to suffer in the interpretation. Many times the ball appears to be dislodged by the tackle, but no free kick is paid despite this not being a legal disposal. Other times, a player with an arm pinned is spun around with the ball taken from his grasp by the force of the tackle, sometimes free kicked for illegal disposal, sometimes not. The seemingly capricious basis for these decisions is, frankly, mystifying and nothing provided by the AFL Umpiring Department sheds light on the practical application of these rules.