The only people who retain any vestige of faith in the video score review system foisted on us by the unlamented Adrian Anderson are the umpires.

For everyone else, it is a mortally-wounded beast that should be put out of its misery with a lead Aspro.

Please, Mark Evans, put it down. End our suffering.

Context is everything, and we didn’t enjoy the Bombers’ game against the Brisbane Lions. One of the things we enjoyed least was the sensation of thinking “That’s a free kick!” as we watched the game and seeing no action from the umpires. And let’s be clear, the umpiring didn’t affect the result of the game!

Let’s also be clear that AussieRulesBlog is not one of those demented morons who wants every contest to result in a free kick to our team. There were just as many free kicks missed for the Lions as for the Bombers.

Contrast the afternoon game with watching the Barcodes–Geelong game on TV. It was hard to believe it was the same sport, being played in the same city, on the same weekend, with the same rule book.

And just to add some extra spice, Friday night’s game seemed to have some crucial changes of interpretation late in the game.

Players are confused! Fans are confused! Coaches are confused and bemused, and gagged.

This is not a rant about umpires. It’s about the system they’re operating within.

Despite there being twenty-seven individuals umpiring elite AFL games every weekend, we simply can’t have twenty-seven individual interpretations, or interpretations that fluctuate wildly during a match!

In this context, we don’t care if the rule or interpretation is a bad one, as long as it is the same every game, every week, for the length of the season.

Jeff Gieschen may think he can con us by just telling us that nothing changes from week to week, but our eyes tell us something quite different.

There are two problems as we see it. The rules, and the interpretations of them, have become over-complicated. Second, the interpretations or the application of the rules and interpretations keep changing. The umpiring in Round 8 is not the same as the umpiring in Round 2. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Release the Giesch and save the game!

We often don’t agree with the Match Review Panel, but we think they got it right on James Kelly’s “bump” that flattened Brendon Goddard.

And just so anyone who knows of our Bombers allegiance doesn’t think we’re miffed at our new star player copping a knock, we think the MRP’s decision on Paddy Ryder’s hit on Luke McPharlin was right too.

So, the Kelly decision was an opportunity for the Chicken Littles to come out and claim the end of civilisation. Kelly’s teammate and captain, Joel Selwood, tweeted “ 'Sad day: the bump is dead' ”. North Melbourne forward Drew Petrie joined the clamour: “It says to us all, as players, 'Don't bump' ”

No, fellas. What it says is don’t iron out a bloke off the ball with a shirtfront. Steve Johnson did a similar thing last year. At least when Kelly hit Goddard the ball is in shot — Johnson was in a different postcode.

Kelly, Johnson and Ryder didn’t execute a bump. They went into the contest with the objective of hurting their opponent. If Kelly wanted to keep Goddard away from the contest, he could have legally done so by extending his arms and shepherding.

Guys, you can bump as much as you like. Deliver a hip and shoulder bump to an opponent’s side and, as long as you keep your feet and don’t fly, there’s virtually no chance of being suspended.

The tweets could more properly have remarked on the end of the shirtfront. And good riddance.

The Giesch seems to think that all you need to understand the rules of the game is his precious DVD. We’re pretty sure he’s relying on the old adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The proof, if any were needed, is the furore that has erupted these last two weeks over marking contests.

The rules around physical contact, as they’ve been stated in words since at least 2008, are very clear. In a marking contest — or any other physical contest on the field of play — it is legal to push an opponent in the side or in the chest with an open hand  as long as the ball is within 5 metres.

The umpire’s job is pretty simple under these conditions.

• Was the ball within 5 metres? Yes or no?
• Did player 1 push player 2 with an open hand? Yes or no?
• Did player 1 push player 2 in the side or chest? Yes or no?

In each case, if the answer is Yes, the contact is legal. If the answer is No, a free kick must be awarded.

But that was too easy for The Giesch. He has overlaid so many “interpretations” over this rule that it is all but unrecognisable.

Were there two actions? Were there hands in the back? It doesn’t matter! Was the ball within 5 metres and was the push with an open hand to the chest or side? Any No means a free kick must be awarded against the pushing player. It’s simple!

And the DVD? Well, sure it shows half a dozen examples of pushing in marking contests, but it’s far from definitive. There’re so many potential scenarios that a few pieces of video footage just can’t cut the mustard. The umpires, and the players, must have a firm foundation for understanding what is legal and what isn’t. That previously firm foundation, the written rules, has been eroded as each new interpretation obscures more of it.

Players, for the most part, probably don’t read the rules of the game. They absorb them as they play from a young age. Today’s players began playing in a much less complicated Aussie Rules environment, and they struggle to cope with the seemingly unremittent change.

Umpires are, even at the elite level, the teachers of the game. Their decisions tell the players what they can and can’t get away with. As a player tests the boundaries, he gets free-kicked and pulls back.

In 2013, we have umpires who are either trigger-happy or hesitant — and with three of them on the field, there’s sure to be an unhealthy mix of surety and hesitance.

Despite what the Giesch would have us believe, umpiring interpretations are changing on an almost weekly basis. Sitting in the stands, watching on TV, it’s as obvious as the nose on The Giesch’s face. It’s no wonder umpires are unsure. And the players just don’t have a hope.

Release The Giesch, reclaim the game!

On the AFL’s website tonight, The Giesch makes a not-very-astounding assertion:

Last week, Brisbane Lions midfielder Tom Rockliff labeled the pushing rule 'bizarre', claiming he was unaware he could not push any player in a marking contest.

Rockliff's remarks have surprised Gieschen, who says it is outlined on the Rules of the Game DVD.

The problem, Jeff, is that the 2013 Laws of Australian Football says you can push a player (in the side or the chest) in a marking contest — as long as the ball is within 5 metres.

Forget the DVD, Jeff. Get your mob to umpire to the rules that are written in the book. There’s a fair chance that we’ll get something that resembles football out of it.

Release the Giesch and reclaim the game.

Former Australian chief nuclear boffin Ziggy Switkowski’s report into the goings on at Bomberland in 2012 hasn’t claimed any immediate scalps, and AussieRulesBlog hopes and expects that it won’t in the longer term either.

The report is not a surprise as most of the background has been publicly aired through the media. No doubt Caroline Wilson will demand that the Governor-General be sacked.

Switkowski’s recommendations do raise some interesting areas for debate however, prime among them being the extent to which “non-football” administrators oversight and manage the football department.

None of Switkowski’s recommendations are revolutionary, especially in the aftermath of the supplements investigation, but it’s quite clear that the ground has shifted beneath the feet of AFL clubs. We probably knew that already, but this report puts it into black and white.

From the outside, it’s hard not to wonder at the extent to which the supplements were involved in the departure of former player Paul Hamilton from his role as football department manager last year.

It’s also hard to imagine, in the pre-supplements affair world, that CEO Ian Robson would feel himself ultimately responsible for the goings on in the football department.

Perhaps the most interesting of Switkowski’s recommendations is the first, where he mentions an “arms race” for on-field advantage. Leigh Matthews commented recently that, as a coach, he would have been intensely interested in anything that might give his team an edge. If anyone thought that any of the eighteen coaches would be any less keen than Matthews to find the key to unlock some advantage before the supplements affair became the biggest story in the news, then they’re dreaming.

Essendon may have been the club caught in the cross-hairs, but it would have been only a matter of months before every club at AFL level were looking closely at what they could do to compete with the Bombers’ perceived advantage (if they weren’t already, as suggested by the Carlton and Melbourne links already mentioned in the media).

It's a bit much for AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou to castigate other AFL clubs for "scurrilous innuendo" concerning Essendon's unbeaten start to the 2013 season.

It's only a few short weeks ago, Andrew, that you were supporting calls for coach James Hird to stand aside pending an outcome to the AFL/ASADA enquiries.

Caught a bit of AFL360 tonight on Foxtel where the discussion was about the Reid-Bellchambers free kick from Anzac Day. Discussion focussed on “two actions”.

Forget the umpires, guys, the ball was 13 to 15 metres away when Reid pushed Bellchambers out of the way.

Right decision. Wrong reason. There’s a real problem in our game when the umpires are not umpiring to the Laws of Australian Football.

As AussieRulesBlog sat comfortably at the MCG on Anzac Day, there was much consternation amongst Barcode supporters when free kicks were paid after Barcodes defenders pushed their opponents before taking a mark.

It was blithely assumed by those well-informed supporters that this was a scheme hatched in the AFL Umpiring Department to deprive the Barcodes of their rightful victory, some misapplication of the new interpretation of ‘hands in the back’. The Reid-Bellchambers decision, in particular, created some excitement among the black and white faithful, more especially because Reid clearly pushed Bellchambers in the side rather than the back.

AussieRulesBlog isn’t shy about taking on the The Giesch and his mob, but we generally like to have our facts straight before going for the Giesch’s throbbing jugular.

To take the new interpretation out of the equation, we consulted our archived copy of the Laws of Football, 2008 edition — yes, we know that’s sad.

15.4.3 Permitted Contact
Other than the prohibited contact identified under law 15.4.5, a player may make contact with another player:
(b) by pushing the other player with an open hand in the chest or side of the body provided that the football is no more than 5 metres away from the player;

Sharp-eyed readers will have spotted a key phrase: provided that the football is no more than 5 metres away from the player.

Just to put this into context, the goal ‘square’ is 10 metres long and the two players in this contest are around 2 metres tall. So if a kicked ball is descending toward a player and is further away than half the length of the goal square or two and a half times the player’s height, it is a free-kick offence to push an opponent.

And guess what? Law 15.4.3 (b) appears again, in exactly the same words, in the 2013 Laws of Australian Football.

So we went looking for the video footage to check out our theory.

Here’s the Reid-Bellchambers contest, in live footage, and the start of the pushing motion. Note that the ball is not in view:

and again in live footage, here’s the ball entering the frame about 3 to 4 metres from Reid’s arms:

We’ve been able to analyse this footage fairly closely (although we don’t have high-speed or high-def footage). From the time of the push, in the first frame above, to the ball finishing in Reid’s arms, about six tenths of a second elapse.

From the ball entering the frame, in the second screen dump, to the ball in Reid’s arms is about 0.16 seconds. If the distance between the ball and Reid in the second frame is conservatively 3.5 metres, the ball is travelling at around 22 metres per second.

Working backwards, in the six tenths of a second between the push and the mark, the ball travelled about 13 metres. The ball must have been 13 metres away, or more, when Reid pushed his opponent out of the contest: FREE KICK Law 15.4.3.

For television viewers, ire is not thwarted when the umpire gives the reason for the free kick as “two actions”. What does two actions have to do with it? Where is the rule on two actions? Another of the Giesch’s nonsense interpretations.