The inadvertent(?) video referral trial

We find it rather serendipitous that the first semi-serious hitout for the season should provide such a stark example of the problems inherent in Adrian Anderson’s proposed video referral model.

 

In the Essendon-West Coast nab Cup game, the ball dribbled toward the goal line and the goal umpire, who had positioned himself straddling the goal line, with his back to the goalpost.

 

We have no issue with the goalie’s positioning. It’s exactly what we’d expect to maximise his chances of judging when the ball had fully crossed the line.

 

The ball hit the goalie’s leg and then glanced off to hit the goalpost. The goalie judged that a goal had been scored.

 

Before the ball was bounced to restart play, either a third goal umpire or one of the field umpires — the commentary team were certainly unsure of the provenance of this decision — overturned the decision, apparently on the basis of a video replay, and the goalie was instructed (we presume) to reverse his decision and award a behind.

 

There are three issues that are raised by this stream of events. The first concerns the initial decision and its basis. The second concerns the basis for overturning the decision, and the third relates to the circumstances that allowed the decision to be reviewed.

 

Looking at the initial decision, did the goalie see the whole ball cross the goal line, or did he assume that it would have done so had it not struck his leg? Given the proximity of his head and leg, it seems inconceivable that he didn’t have a good view.

 

Had the ball fully crossed the goal line before it struck the goalie’s leg, then a goal is the correct decision. Only the goalie knows whether he saw that happen.

 

If we then turn to the basis for overturning the decision, it was, not to put too fine a point on it, spurious. The angle of the camera didn’t allow a judgement to be made about whether the ball had entirely crossed the goal line at the time that it struck the goalie’s leg. How then can the decision be overturned? The reviewing official, whoever they were, did not have as clear a view as the goalie, and could fairly be said to have had a much worse perspective.

 

That the ball eventually struck the goalpost is immaterial, yet that seemed to be the basis for overturning the goalie’s decision. Perhaps there was a video feed that wasn’t publicly available, but based on the channel 7 footage shown, there could not have been a foolproof, incontestable basis for overturning the decision.

 

Thirdly, leaving aside the second issue for the moment and remembering that AussieRulesBlog has made this point before, it was only because the initial decision was to award a goal that there was time to review the decision. Had the ‘erroneous’ decision been to award a behind, there would have been no time to review.

 

So, the outcome of a game might turn on whether an unwarranted goal is awarded or not. An unwarranted behind simply cannot be reviewed since the laws of the game allow the defending team to kick the ball back into play almost immediately.

 

We said at the time this video referral process was announced that it was a crock. This first instance serves only to illustrate how right we were!