The Dockers: nine seconds equals an eternity

 

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By Best Clubman, 1 May 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

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After wasting the last nine years, not to mention the best part of their entire 13-year existence, you would think the Fremantle Dockers would not be too concerned about the wasting of nine seconds in the Anzac Day match against Geelong.

But the Dockers are ropable after nine seconds expired at the end of the match as they were one point down and about to enter their forward 50 metre area for one last attempt at winning the match.

The error occurred as Ryan Murphy accepted a free kick that should have gone to the ever-promising, always under-delivering Byron Schammer. As the ball was relayed back to Schammer, nine seconds expired off the clock.

Fremantle football manager Robert Shaw indicated the club was seeking an explanation from the AFL about how this apparent injustice occurred. “There is a timekeeping error, it’s plain and simple,” Shaw said before providing the less than simple explanation that the error occurred because:

* When Fremantle accepted the free kick the clock was stopped.
* Murphy mistakenly took the kick from about 75m out and the clock started
* The boundary umpire consulted with the field umpire in the forward zone and said the mark should have been 55m out and the kick taken by Schammer
* The umpire then stopped play again and returned the ball to Schammer
* The clock continued to tick down nine seconds.

To Best Clubman, that sequence of events seems more complicated than perfecting a move in the bedroom with a lady friend that doesn’t involve the tried and tested missionary position.

Shaw wailed on that “the wrong decision was made; it probably gave us less time to get the ball into the goal square, which, hypothetically, could have affected the outcome of the game,” which seems to be a reference to Josh Carr and Peter Bell’s decision-making skills by foot as well as the incident in question.

Waxing philosophical, Shaw opined that AFL was a game consisting of understandable errors. “Players make errors, umpires make errors, it’s a game of decision-making, so that’s the way it goes.”

Shaw refused to elaborate on how many errors Dockers management had made in recent years by trading for Chris Tarrant in exchange for the rapidly improving Paul Medhurst and the drafting of established Essendon has-beens Dean Solomon, Kepler Bradley and Mark Johnsons onto the AFL’s oldest list.

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