Here at AussieRulesBlog Central we were forcing ourselves to watch the Bombers go down to North again and we noticed, at the start of the third quarter, an umpire call back a player-initiated advantage because “there’s no advantage”. We’re pretty sure we’ve seen this in another game some time over the past couple of weekends too.
As we noted in our Focus on Rules II: Advantage post, for the 2011 season the Law was rewritten to incorporate player-initiated advantage and the provision for the umpire to call the ball back where there is no advantage (17.3.2) was removed.
We don’t know why we’re surprised, but there seems to have been a change in the way this Law is being implemented in the last couple of weeks. We can only assume that The Giesch has seen the criticism and responded in the only way he knows how — by changing the level playing field while the game is being played!
Jeff, is there even the faintest chance that we could see a Law interpreted in the same way for one whole season? This really is beyond a joke.
Release the Giesch!!!!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Focus on Rules IIa: Advantage
Labels:
Jeff Gieschen,
laws of the game,
Rules
Here at AussieRulesBlog Central we were forcing ourselves to watch the Bombers go down to North again and we noticed, at the start of the third quarter, an umpire call back a player-initiated advantage because “there’s no advantage”. We’re pretty sure we’ve seen this in another game some time over the past couple of weekends too.As we noted in our Focus on Rules II: Advantage post, for the 2011 season the Law was rewritten to incorporate player-initiated advantage and the provision for the umpire to call the ball back where there is no advantage (17.3.2) was removed.
We don’t know why we’re surprised, but there seems to have been a change in the way this Law is being implemented in the last couple of weeks. We can only assume that The Giesch has seen the criticism and responded in the only way he knows how — by changing the level playing field while the game is being played!
Jeff, is there even the faintest chance that we could see a Law interpreted in the same way for one whole season? This really is beyond a joke.
Release the Giesch!!!!
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2 comments:
Bit late, but I wanted to to say something about Advantage.
Not sure how much rugby union you watch (or have watched), but the Advantage rule there works reasonably well (I think), because the referee does not blow the whistle to signal advantage. He calls 'Advantage!' and allows play to continue, if the team that should have the advantage has possession of the ball. If it loses possession while Advantage is on, the ref returns play to where it stopped. Once he's satisfied that enough Advantage has been played, he calls 'Advantage over!' and play continues.
The key here is that the whistle isn't blown. Why would a professional player, trained for years to stop at the sound of a whistle, play on after it's been blown?
The notion of advantage is not bad in itself, but calling 'Advantage!' after the whistle doesn't make sense in a sport where possession changes hands so quickly. If the AFL wants to look at a more successful model, I think they'd do well to observe rugby.
You're right, of course. Rugby provides an excellent example, but we'll always have to compromise it to make it fit into an aussie rules context, and THAT's where the difficulties start!
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