Video review highlights ‘goalie’ errors

There is unfortunate news that a sub-standard system of video review of goal line decisions will be implemented for the 2012 season.

 

"The trials through the NAB Cup have shown that broadcast vision can assist us reaching the correct decision in some cases, and we have elected to introduce the change if we can eliminate errors in some instances," Anderson said.

Anderson’s statement is correct, but omits to mention that the system does absolutely nothing to improve the accuracy of the most contentious of decisions. In fact, implementing video review actually highlights goal umpire errors by drawing even more attention to them.

 

AussieRulesBlog has railed long and loud about the inadequacies of Anderson’s ‘system’. This cheapskate system, piggy-backing on the broadcasters’ resources, is an orphan mongrel.

 

Those who’ve watched NRL on television in recent seasons will have seen a properly-resourced goal line decision assist system. Crucially, the NRL system has a camera right on the goal line and on each side line. The video referee can (in almost all cases) easily assess whether the scorer has grounded the ball over the line and has not broken the side lines.

 

Compare the NRL system with the AFL’s and it becomes immediately clear what a dog’s breakfast Anderson’s scheme is.