It was, after all, only the first night of the pre-season competition, but we found ourselves once again shaking our head at free kicks for incidental contact.
As ‘Special K’ Hunt and ‘The Promised Land’ Folau will attest, Aussie rules is a 360° game and a physical game. Physical contact is part and parcel of the sport — unlike, for instance, basketball (even if only in the strictest sense).
Go out this weekend and find some netball being played. You’ll hear the referees whistling and calling “Contact!” That’s because it is a non-contact sport.
We understand that the AFL is determined to protect players’ heads, but we still can’t come to terms with a free kick paid for an incidental arm that brushes across a shoulder. It wouldn’t be so bad if every arm that brushed across a shoulder were similarly penalised, but they’re not. And there’s the rub!
If there are ‘infractions’ that are not being penalised, where is the line that an umpire uses to determine whether a particular incidental contact is worthy of a free kick?
In the end, for fans at the game, these decisions end up looking capricious at best because, even though we are much further away than the umpires, we see these incidental contacts throughout the game.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment