Australian rules football is a complex sport. Its speed, free-flowing 360° nature, physicality and eccentric ball all combine to give a unique character to the wonderful game we love. Paradoxically, those same aspects make it one of the most difficult sports to officiate.

AussieRulesBlog thinks most will agree that a key criterion for on-field officials is an indefinable ‘feel’ for the game.

‘Feel’ is that mysterious quality of understanding that was missing on Friday night when deciding deliberate out of bounds decisions. It’s the quality missing when umpires officiate the game strictly, literally, ‘by the book’.

Some umpires have a feel for the game, organically. Peter Cameron and Glen James are two that come to mind from the past. Some others clearly don’t. Of the current crop, Steve McBurney, Dean Margetts, Justin Schmidt and Michael Jennings are those who we think don’t have a feel for the game. Match Review Panel chairman Mark Fraser, previously both an AFL player and senior umpire, seems not to have that feel in his current role.

It’s obviously difficult to recruit umpires. It’s a key element of supporters’ self-appointed role to provide vociferous advice to umpires on the job, even at under-age levels. At the top level, umpires are not professional and only those with flexible employment arrangements can contemplate taking the job on.

It is past time the game had fully-professional field umpires who could devote themselves to the task more fully. Not least of the benefits we might perceive could be a greater consistency of interpretation, but perhaps the AFL Umpiring department could do more to develop and encourage a ‘feel’ for the game as its umpires develop.

There was a sign held up by a spectator as the umpires exited the field on Friday night. It was obviously not a spur of the moment production, but it was curiously appropriate on a night when the interpretation of deliberate out of bounds had been turned on its head. “Umpire: All we want is consistency!” the sign stridently demanded. Ditto!

Friday night’s Round 20 WCE-Geelong game was remarkable for the glut of decisions penalising players for putting the ball out of bounds deliberately.

This rule has always been a bone of contention, relying as it does on the umpire’s ability to discern the player’s intent.

15.6 Free kicks — relating to out of bounds
15.6.1 When awarded
A free kick shall be awarded against a player who:
(c)  intentionally kicks, handballs or forces the football over the boundary line without the football being touched by another player;

So, the problem here is the umpire’s divination of intent. And the problem on Friday night related to some new, parallel universe version of intent that appeared mysteriously without regular precedent.

AussieRulesBlog is currently on leave, enjoying balmy sunshine in the Aussie Rules virtual media blackout that is south-east Queensland, so we’ve only seen snippets of the Suns and Lions games since the Friday night debacle. The mysterious interpretations of deliberate out of bounds don’t appear to have escaped the rabbit-proof fence as far as we can discern.

We have long championed the notion that the interpretation of the laws of the game should be the same in the first minute of pre-season as in the last minute of the Grand Final. Now, let’s add an extra demand: interpretations should be the same in every State in which the game is played.

Release The Giesch!

‘Saint’ Stephen Milne is fined $3000 by his club after a report from umpire Dean Margetts that he called Magpie Harry O’Brien a “f------ homo c---”, as reported in The Age.

The story goes on to quote AFL Operations boss Adrian Anderson labelling Milne’s comments “simply not acceptable … for AFL players to use homophobic insults on the football field”.

Aren’t you being a bit selective, Adrian? What about the other word? Around 50% of the population would find it at least as objectionable as the homophobic portion of the comment, but your reported comments make no mention of it.

More to the point, we’re in serious danger of a vain attempt at trying to turn the AFL field into a sledge-free, swear-free environment. How sanitised can we realistically make a physical contest between grown men?

Standards do change, as we’ve seen with the AFL’s much-applauded stance against racial abuse, but AussieRulesBlog wonders where we draw the line when we start to sanction “unacceptable language”. The first question to answer? Unacceptable to whom?

It’s inevitable that there’ll be widespread condemnation of Tom Liberatore after what today’s Age calls “his disastrous night out”.

But AussieRulesBlog advises caution. We’ll reluctantly admit to our sixth decade and we could never have been labelled a hellraiser, yet we can recall too many instances of similarly ill-considered behaviour. Fortunately for us, at least in the this respect, we weren’t listed by an AFL club and there wasn’t a 24-hour news monster that demanded fresh blood every day like some grubby vampire.

Lest anyone be tempted to moralise, we encourage them to quickly review the tape of their own lives and decide whether they’re in a position to comment.

For those of our loyal readers still muddling their way through their second or third decade, believe us: you’ll do something stupid one day. It might not be drink, it might not be drugs, but it will be stupid.

Does AussieRulesBlog condone what happened? Hell, no! Can we understand how otherwise sober and responsible people can cross a line? Hell, yes!

AussieRulesBlog thinks we’re getting just a bit too precious when Alastair Clarkson is the subject of media reports because he swore.

Sure, it was on the field during an under-age football match. Yes, it would have been better had it not happened.

And, yes, every one of those kids would have seen graphic television footage of pretty much every AFL coach silently uttering some expletive or other. And let’s not forget about players missing shots for goal and exclaiming “Point!”, but starting it with an F.

It also appears Clarkson is not guilty of the “expletive-laden rant” that one radio report had accused him of.

Please, let’s not blow this grain of sand up into a mountain.

It’s a mark of totalitarian regimes that they do not tolerate dissent and that’s an unfortunate association for the AFL to be courting when it admonishes players or officials who comment on legitimate points of discussion in the game.

This last week, in the wake of the Ziebell-Judd equivalency, three players took to the ether to express a view and North Melbourne coach Brad Scott chose a media interview to do the same.

The three players were issued with a ‘please explain’ letter each.

Drew Petrie’s tweet: “advice for jackziebell. Stop being so courageous and playing footy hard that way it's meant to be played. Please turn into a softy!”

James Kelly’s tweet: “I was going to tweet how Zebel getting 4 weeks was a mare of a decision but decided not to so I don't get in trouble.”

The AFL has apparently determined that these comments were not in breach of Rule 23.18.2 — a rule that doesn’t appear in the AFL’s 1012 version of the laws of the game in case you were thinking of checking it out — in that they were not “unfair, unreasonable or excessive”.

It’s just too precious of the AFL to insist that players and officials cannot criticise umpires, the Match Review Panel or the Tribunal when the decisions of these AFL functionaries have a significant potential effect on how players and officials can go about their tasks.

The Ziebell decision, where even the tribunal that suspended Ziebell agreed that he’d been attempting to gain possession of the football — a fundamental tenet of the sport of Aussie Rules, surely — goes to the very heart of how players compete for the football. The tribunal has effectively said that incidentally causing injury to an opponent whilst attempting to gain possession of the ball is an infringement of the rules of the game and will carry  some penalty.

This is absolutely untenable, but even more incredible is the AFL’s response to criticism. We wonder if there’d be please explain letters for players agreeing with the tribunal’s stance?

If the decisions of umpires, the Match Review Panel and the Tribunal cannot stand the spotlight of criticism, then our game is in a pretty bad way.

And by criticism AussieRulesBlog doesn’t mean the invective hurled at umpires from the stands. The Bomber supporter (unfortunately) just below us on Friday night who commented on every umpiring decision by shouting “You idiot!” or “You moron!” is where the AFL should concentrate their efforts. We wonder if he knew he was referring to himself?

So, let’s get this straight. Jack Ziebell’s collision with Aaron Joseph in a genuine contest for the ball is equivalent to Chris Judd wrenching an opponent’s arm whilst he is pinned with a player on top of him. Of course that’s a simplistic assessment, but the similarity of the penalty — a four-week holiday each, if you hadn’t heard — invites the comparison.

The old VFL/AFL Tribunal system may have been antiquated, time-consuming and, as we then thought, inconsistent, but compared to the hotch-potch inflicted on the game by Adrian Anderson it was simply wonderful.

There is no part of the current system that delivers consistency and most parts, including basic on-field officiating, are devoid of considerations of context. The system is, quite simply, broken and it’s author cannot credibly remain in his post. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, Adrian.

AussieRulesBlog wonders if Chris Judd has damaged the brand — in a football sense — beyond redemption with his third bizarre act of unsportsmanlike conduct on the field.

We are thinking of comparisons with, say, Ben Cousins. Cousins’ well-publicised off-field issues never significantly affected his on-field performance. AussieRulesBlog regards him as one of the finest dozen or so players we have seen.

Similarly, Wayne Carey’s indiscretions, also well-publicised, didn’t damage his standing as one of the very best footballers to have ever pulled on boots.

Remember, these are comparisons in a purely football sense, completely excluding moral issues.

It’s rather curious that Judd’s imperfections should show up in the very arena where he has dazzled so many. Life can be funny like that.

For the record, AussieRulesBlog has always regarded Judd as just below the very top echelon of players. We feel his disposal by foot has lacked the incisive precision of the truly elite players.