Five first-half 50-metre penalty goals to the Demons in their game against Essendon — all of them technically “there” perhaps, all of them severe and over-zealous interpretations on even the most charitable assessment and counter to the generally prevailing interpretations for the rest of the season and, without having the benefit of checking the replay yet, all of them the work of one umpire it seemed — accounted for the Demons lead at half time.
It matters not that the Demons looked the better team and deserved to win. If it were not already obvious, the application and severity of the 50-metre penalty must be reassessed.
As best AussieRulesBlog can determine, the umpire involved, Corey Bowen, was umpiring his first AFL game. Despite our deep frustration, we understand that nervousness on the big stage for the first time could lead to over-zealous officiating. Hopefully, he will learn from the experience, but the AFL must also learn the lesson that a blanket reliance on 50-metre penalties is damaging the game.
AussieRulesBlog is happy to concede that 50 metres is appropriate for deliberate and clearly-obvious time-wasting or for deliberate violence.
Interchange infringements seem to us to be pretty minor in the spectrum of offences. If a team has an extra player on the field due to sloppy interchanging and either that player is involved in the play or is on the field for more than, say, five seconds, we’re happy with a 50-metre penalty. If those conditions are not met, forget it.
Offences at the mark should be dependant on whether the umpire has set the mark. If a player runs over the mark immediately subsequent to a legitimate attempt to spoil, carried there by his momentum, providing he immediately attempts to take up a more realistic mark and moves backward to assume a more realistic position, no penalty should be applied. An umpire could adjust that positioning without penalty, provided reasonable instructions were obeyed.
We are all for penalising players who intentionally drag down a player who has marked, if the tackling player was not in the marking contest. This does constitute time wasting and the 50-metre penalty is appropriate.
If, however, the players are involved in a contest for the mark, that is, they are touching or almost touching each other, regardless of whether the defending player actually makes contact with the ball, the tackling/defending player is not wasting time, but competing for the ball. Applying a 50-metre penalty in these circumstances reduces Aussie rules to a game of netball.
As custodians of the game, it is incumbent on the AFL to introduce a lesser penalty — perhaps 25 metres — for some lesser-severity offences. The lesser penalty may also reduce the impact of incorrect decisions.
We would also hope that umpires beginning their senior AFL careers might be past nervousness.
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3 comments:
It's worth remembering, in relation to 'over the mark' offences, that it's pretty much impossible for a player running hard to try to defend against a hard lead to get the spot of the mark exactly, or any of his teammates for that matter.
If the umpire hasn't set the mark by attending at that spot in person, there should be some degree of leniency and a series of warnings. Otherwise, the offence is against some invisible line known only to one umpire.
These are matters of common sense application of rules rather than the zero-tolerance application favoured by The Giesch. For the most part, common sense is applied, but occasional over-zealous interpretation cruels it for everybody.
It wasn't even the "over the mark" interpretation in the Essendon Melbourne match on the weekend that bothered me most (even though by far the most blatant example of this "offence" in the match involved a Melbourne player whose actions were completely ignored by the umpires - intriguing that the Mikado hasn't given the umpire concerned a public serve given his proclivity for such things, but instead stresses that the other offences were all "there").
It was the willingness to pay 50's in situations where the umpire was simply guessing that got to me. Situations where contact occurred within milliseconds of "right" and "wrong". Ok if a mark hasn't yet been taken or payed. Wrong if it wasn't, but within limits that neither the player nor the umpire could make any judgement about without the benefit of a 60 frame a second slow motion camera.
Umpiring decisions made on this sort of basis are not merely often incorrect, but they take real contests out of the game. Sure, if something is a second late, pay the penalty, but when the only way the Mikado can subsequently justify the decision is to play the event back in slow motion then it is pretty clear that the decision making process itself has gone off the rails.
We're in serious prospect of unanimity here, Rod!
Your highlight of hairtrigger decisions is absolutely spot on. There were a series in the Melbourne-Essendon game.
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