Video cock-up #4

It’ll come as no surprise to regular readers that a fourth cock-up has followed the first three. AussieRulesBlog has already identified the stunningly obvious inadequacies of Adrian Anderson’s goal line video decision assistance trial.

 

In the Port – Carlton leg of the Adelaide round of pre-season round one, a Port player lunges to touch a ball heading towards the goal line. The goal umpire is well-positioned. Port players remonstrate with the umpire when he signals a goal. No video referral is made, inexplicably when the decision is so close.

 

Subsequent replays shown on the broadcast are from game camera angles — which is the root of the problem — but suggest there’s a good case that the goal umpire got the decision wrong.

 

Later in the day, after a disagreement between a goal umpire and a boundary umpire over whether a ball had struck the behind post, the field umpire made a video referral and it was quickly determined that the ball had struck the post — not the decision the goal umpire first signalled.

 

What’s most curious about these two incidents is that the later one wasn’t a goal-line decision. A camera aligned with the goal line — which is the only way that goal line decisions, the stated target of this trial, could be properly judged — wouldn’t have provided any useful information. Only a game camera — and some luck with angles — could provide appropriate video assistance.

 

The first incident needed a goal-line camera, but there aren’t any.

 

This has been a monumental cock-up. Heads should roll. We can only hope that Vlad tears Adrian a new one on Monday morning.

 

Less than a tenth of one percent of goal umpiring decisions are errors according to Anderson. If the past two weekends are any indication, that figure is massively understated. Perhaps Anderson has done the game a favour by highlighting just how poor goal line decisions are when there’s no organised scrutiny of them.