The umpires in tonight’s Hawthorn-Bulldogs game have obviously been instructed to pay a free kick for pretty much any physical contact off the ball — yet another hysterical overreaction by the Giesch and his charges.
We’ve just witnessed Steve McBurney — who else? — paying a free kick against the run of play when Franklin layed a glancing block on a Bulldogs defender to free up a Hawks teammate. Since when did this become illegal? We’ve been watching AFL/VFL for more than forty years and this is a first.
About the only consistency the AFL umpiring department can provide is the assurance of maniacal obsession with “the rule of the week”.
And that’s not even to consider the 50-metre penalties for the newly-newsworthy “prohibited contact”.
Seriously, AFL umpires aren’t at the abysmal level set by FIFA’s World Cup referees — and Australia wants to host that joke of a tournament? — but a controversy is certain to get the whistleblowers blowing frantically at every available opportunity.
Release the Giesch!!
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5 comments:
I wish to comment on is the 50 metreathon we are seeing, My predication is that the Victorian Field Umpires assoc have created a new award for Victorian Field umpires "The ENFORCER" award for the Victorian Field umpire who gives the most free kicks in a season but the kicker is that they get bonus points for every 50m given. This explanation works for me :)
But back to commenting there has been a rule in the rule book that has been there since Adam played as a forward for the Melbourne Footy Club and that is Rule 15.4.5 on page52 of the law book which in sub section (e)(f)(g) apply basically the time honoured interpretation of this section is that it is totally outside the spirit of game nor does it add one single benefit to the game for players to make any contact with each other when the play is more than 20 meters away.
I also draw attention to Kevin Sheedys comments during the 150 year celebrations when he said that because field umpires go to extreme lengths over the past 30 years to ignore this fundamental rule of the game we have seen over and over many of the greats of the game sustain serious injuries that have shortened their carriers with many permentally scared from years of being punched in the kidneys and liver only to have these organs permentally damages while the thugs that dish it out go on to have lack lustre careers. So with this one I am in two minds, either the games bosses tell the Gech to enforce the rule and keep great players in the game or we remove it from the rules and signup all of our great player as soon as they start playing onto the kidney and liver transplant lists because it a really good bet that the piss weak thugs in the game who dish it out will put them there.
Cheers and keep up your great blogging and also to the boys at Kick 2 Kick great work on talking about the taboo subjects in Footy.
A Pissed off Footy Fan
Thanks for pointing out that there is a rule against blocking. I've just never been aware of it being employed previously. Since the addition of extra umpires onto the field, there have been frees paid for holding of players attempting to lead, but I can't remember one for blocking.
As with your other comment, I think ascribing any of this to some sort of anti-non-Victorian cabal amongst the umpiring department can't reasonably be sustained.
Greetings footy fans
I am researching the AFL umpires and our perceptions of their performance.
Would very much appreciate you taking a few minutes to complete this voluntary survey (link below). Rest assured your answers will remain completely anonymous.
http://opinio.online.swin.edu.au/s?s=AFL_Umpires_2010
Please feel free to pass it on to any friends and associates who might like to have their say!
Thanks
Rob Gill
Swinburne University of Technology
Rob, thanks for posting this. As you would have gathered from the original post, AussieRulesBlog is firmly of the opinion that the problems, such as they are, are firmly located at the head of the AFL's umpiring department. I've indicated as much in my final comment on your survey.
Something seems to have gone wrong with the commenting and four comments (that we know of) have gone missing. In the most important of these, an anonymous poster alerted up to Rule 15.4.5(e) which prohibits blocking more than 5 metres from the ball. In the Dark Ages this rule used to refer to shepherding. So, Steve McBurney was right — you have no idea how much it hurts to type that — although he's the only one paying free kicks based on that rule.
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