Well, our cup will runneth over if the reports in the mainstream media prove to be  reasonably accurate.

"... while the PA system will be used to relay umpiring and score review explanations." says The Age reporting on revamps to the "fan experience" at the Docklands stadium.

We're keeping our powder dry — to mix metaphors wildly — until our eyes or ears prove that this is a meaningful addition.

One of AussieRulesBlog's long-held bugbears has been the free kick paid by a non-controlling umpire. Those of us at the game who are watching the ball — admittedly a smallish number it seems — are left wondering what in the blazes has gone wrong when a completely unexpected free kick is paid. Often it's an out-of-zone umpire making the decision, but we fare-paying passengers have been left uninformed.

Hopefully, a scoreboard display or announcement will tell us that a free kick has been awarded to Team A Number X  after Team B's Number Y gave him a swift uppercut in the midst of a rolling maul on the outer half-back flank.

We're not hanging by our thumbs waiting for too much information. Some detail will be better than what we've had.

We haven't watched a great deal of the meaningless pre-season practice games, but one incident from the weekend's games has struck a chord for AussieRulesBlog.

Carlton's Chris Yarran was tackled, in the third quarter if we recollect properly, was spun in the tackle and managed to get a handball off. Yarran and the TV prognosticators were bemused when one of the four field umpires paid a free kick against him for incorrect disposal. It was clear, from the direction the umpire ran in, that his view of the handball would have been obscured by Yarran's body.

This means that, despite Mark Evans' announcement of the extra umpire for the pre-season games as a way to improve the accuracy of decision making, the umpire concerned guessed or assumed.

Umpires guessing or assuming is nothing new. It's been happening for years. But in an age where the AFL and others have set the bar at approaching 100% accuracy, guessing or assuming doesn't fit the bill.

It's time for Wayne Campbell to read the riot act to his umpires and firmly instruct them that they must only pay free kicks where they see the infraction take place.

This is a bit like the principle of British justice that it is better for nine guilty people to go free than that one innocent person is incorrectly punished.

Umpires can, do and will miss free kicks because their view is obscured. Crowds, players and coaches will wail and howl, but it's better that those free kicks go unpaid than that umpires award free kicks for infractions they think probably happened.

Of course, umpiring is a difficult job requiring instantaneous decisions, and most of us criticising the umpires couldn't do even half as well as they do. But an act of omission is, in this case, much more desirable than an unjustified act of commission.