The views expressed on Talkback are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Racing and Sports. You must be a registered user to write postings or send messages to other users. Click here to register.

Order by Date Ascending

AFL umpiring

AFL (Aussie Rules) -- Discuss AFL Sports Betting

Page 2 of 2

Go to Page: 2, 1. Next >>

Author: lostclarity
Timestamp:- 10/8/2012 8:47:33 PM
Subject: AFL umpiring

Message:
Last Saturday night’s contest between St Kilda and Collingwood was a bad time for football. The game had an unusually high number of incidents piled on top of the farce that has become AFL umpiring.

It was probably the first time in my life I have thought a bias might have been deliberate. The decision in favour of O’Brien that cost St Kilda a draw had a basis in nothing to do with what happened. O’Brien was not touched and a result was ruined. It was Collingwood as beneficiary. It could have been worse by a little but not much: it could have been Essendon.

Brendan Goddard didn’t calm down post-game, and neither had many St Kilda supporters of my acquaintance by Monday. If an umpire misses something, that’s one thing, to see something that wasn’t there is quite another.

The game is played at life pace multiplied by, who knows, perhaps a hundred. That means intensity of the pressure cooker variety: your average impassioned player will swear more, punch more, spill emotion out of its seat more, wave, gesticulate, headshake [insert your own words] more. And players are now being punished for swearing at each other.

We have a great game. Enter the umpire with an imperious boss-attitude passed down from the mastermind Demetriou. The umpire is instructed not to understand all this bad behaviour. What he does is get involved without the bumps and body-on-the-line; he doesn’t feel a thing, and that’s lucky for him, not that he knows. He is permitted to stand back and go through the gears, regulate events, oversee it all in that safe detachment which has now run to self-love, I feel sure.

He might, if he becomes possessed by his importance offer advice. A season or two ago a field umpire instructed a player on how he ought to kick for goal from a position beyond fifty. And it’s enough that we have to see it: now we must listen as well. And like rugby, a man is now called to book, admonished head down, and then punished, and punished again when he reacts like he doesn’t like it. Where is Phil Carmen when you need him?

There was a time when we didn’t notice umpires, when the whistle was put away, when policemen were not officiating… When players with the merest trace of common sense ignored them [mostly] as insignificant because they were. Umpires wore whites not colours and they melted into the background in accordance with their be-seen-and-not-heard role. Now they presume to know with emphatic and obnoxious certainty what was on a player’s mind when a ball is kicked, and fifty metres later it trickles out of bounds.

I can deal with arrogance born of charisma and robust self-esteem and skill and team play that produces passages that are the reasons we follow the game. I don’t mind a Carey or even an Akermanis. But just what is it these guys bring to the game that is exclusively their own.

Certainly not on-the-job ideas. They follow a rulebook plus and/or minus any weekly adjustments made by suits behind closed doors.

Take their bright colours from them and put them back in the background, instruct them not to intervene in stuff that has always stayed on the field and let’s get back to creating results that are earned only by the men on the ground.

Do I hate umpires? Yes, they take from us. And I hate what’s behind them causing all this mess.