Green whistle for go, red whistle for stop

Some time ago, we mentioned in passing the logical disconnect between the umpire-adjudicated advantage rule and 50-metre penalties for those who either judge the umpire’s intent incorrectly and kick the ball on in anticipation of advantage or simply don’t hear the whistle — surely a plausible excuse in front of forty or fifty thousand screaming fans.

 

Keen students of the game will recall that a player-initiated advantage system was trialled in the pre-season competition this year.

 

A dozen or so games is insufficient to expose the inadequacies of a trial ruling, and it seems to AussieRulesBlog that the same problem remains in the player-initiated advantage schema: assumptions have to be made about what decision the umpire is about to deliver.

 

Were the umpires to be equipped with something resembling a miniature harmonica, with one tone for a free kick to team A and another for a free kick to team B, it would be reasonable to penalise a team whose player kicked the ball on in defiance of the whistle tone. In the absence of such a device, and with the capricious nature of many current interpretations, penalties for attempting to initiate an advantage situation verge on the ridiculous.

 

Let’s go further however and question the legitimacy of advantage as a concept. There isn’t a vanilla-style, one-size-fits-all scenario for advantage, although teams — and their fans — are quick to criticise perceived disadvantage when play is halted and brought back for a free kick.

 

Too often for AussieRulesBlog’s liking, the team gaining the advantage does so out of a combination of blind, capricious luck and their opponents having stopped on the sound of the whistle.

 

The fact is that most footballers have been taught to play to the whistle. When you hear the whistle, you stop what you’re doing and turn to the umpire to determine what will happen. For the umpire to suddenly decide that a player who has fortuitously gained free possession of the ball thirty metres in the clear is part of “continuous play” flies in the face of concepts like natural justice and fair play.

 

It’s our assessment that the rule, as it is currently umpired, is unduly advantageous on too many occasions. (The exception is scenarios where a so-called professional free kick is given up in order to slow down the attacking team. We aren’t enthusiastic about leaning on the umpire’s judgement in these situations, but there isn’t a viable alternative and it’s appropriate that the professional free kick is discouraged. We must also rely on the umpire’s judgement, unfortunately, for feined non-hearing of the whistle, since a kick against the direction of the free kick provides ample time for defenders to organise themselves.) We also note that the current interpretations favour apparently capricious and seemingly random application of the rule.