There’s a significant problem in Australian Rules football and it centres on one of the most iconic contests in our game — the ruck.
With two generally large men contesting against each other to get a hand on the ball and feed it to their smaller teammates, the ruck is a vigorous part of the game.
The conundrum is the umpiring of these ruck contests. There can be a dozen contests with both players holding, pushing, shoving, leaning and generally making nuisances of themselves to keep their opponent off balance and away from the ball.
And then an umpire blows a free kick for some infinitesimal-looking incidental contact and we fans are left scratching our heads, wondering why this contest and not the previous dozen that looked just the same.
Ruck contests are the most unevenly umpired aspect of the game at AFL level, and often the most frustrating. If nothing else, it’s abundantly clear each week that ruckmen don’t understand why free kicks are being paid.
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4 comments:
Could not agree more, it is almost a joke how the umpires do this. Personally just let them go for it - i love watching ruckmen going for it and the umpires should just let them go for it.
Maybe when they bring out weapons, umpire that but until then let them go for it...
Well, perhaps not a free-for-all. There needs to be a framework of rules around all parts of the game. As has been a constant refrain now for some years, consistency is the biggest issue with the officiating.
I disagree as the issue of consistency has only come about after the rule changers brought in a framework of rules to guide the ruck contests....
Well, there have always been rules. The issue I have with the current situation is not the feigned amazement of, say, a Nick Maxwell when he gets free kicked after assault and battery of his opponent, but the obviously geniune puzzlement of ruckmen on both sides when the whistle blows during a ruck contest. They clearly have no clue about what was done wrong a good portion of the time.
I think it's simplistic though to damn ALL rule changes. The introduction of the large circle reduced the incidence of career-threatening PCL injuries to almost zero. That's hardly a bad thing, but then it's also a black and white interpretation — you're either inside the circle or you're not.
The frees that seem to elicit the most puzzlement are those arising from incidental contact. I don't like the notion of free kicking incidental contact anywhere on the field, but it's at its worst in the ruck contest. And the biggest problem is that it gets picked out, seemingly at random.
Watching a modern boundary throw in ruck contest is like watching the third fall of a pro wrestling match. These guys are all over each other like rashes and one time in five the peanut with the whistle will see a pinky finger graze a shoulder and whistle a free kick. It's ludicrous.
Unfortunately, this issue can't be solved until the Rules Committee provides a more practical interpretation for The Giesch to implement.
Talking of The Giesch, please release him!! Now!!!
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