During Friday night’s West Coast-Essendon preseason hit-out, some time in between feats of Nic Naitanui brilliance, a curious umpiring decision managed to raise a few eyebrows.

Right before half time, a goal umpire awarded a crucial six points to Eagle Andrew Embley. The decision put the Eagles in front seconds away from the siren. However watching from home, even upon first glance, it seemed as though the ball had already crossed the line before Embley kicked it.

Sure enough, replays confirmed not only had the ball crossed the line, it also managed to bounce off the post before contact was made. Worse still, the replays seemed to indicate when the ball crossed the line the first time it hit the goal umpire’s right leg – a leg which was standing over the goal line.

In short, the decision was pretty hard to comprehend.

Soon after, a field umpire sought to overturn the decision. Those at the ground noticed that before consulting with the goal umpire, the field umpire looked up at the scoreboard, which was showing those exact replays of the incident.

But here’s the thing. Umpires are directed not to make any decisions based on replays shown at the ground. Video reviews are not part of the AFL.

Even whilst downplaying the incident, umpires boss Jeff Gieschen let slip that the replay was used as a source of confirmation: “As soon as he saw the ball hit the post he started to make his way down to let the people know that it had touched the post. On his way through he’d seen that actually confirmed on the big screen as well, so he was 100 per cent certain from what he’d seen and then of course he checked just to make sure he was right.”

So there’s no question that the umpire looked up at the replay. But apparently he was “100 per cent certain” before that. Which only raises the question, why did he check “just to make sure he was right” if he was so certain?

Frankly, the incident opens up a giant can of worms. There’s the actions of the field umpire that should be considered. Then there’s the goal umpire, too. He shouldn’t be forgotten.

But perhaps the biggest issue to stem from it all is whether or not video review should be a part of AFL games.

I’ve written before about how different umpires observing play from different angles can prove a powerful way to resolve disputes over goals or non-goals. That was in the wake of bizarre calls for video reviews after an incident involving Alwyn Davey last year that was superbly dealt with on the field and yet offered no conclusive evidence through replays.

And the point still stands. How often do such incidents occur and of those, how many can be adequately handled by the umpires on the field?

Disputes like these don’t come up all that often.

The Tom Hawkins goal-that-wasn’t at last year’s grand final has put a few people on edge. Even those at AFL House are looking into the possible use of technology.

But as my Roar colleague Ben Somerford noted at the time of the Hawkins incident, “The goal umpire didn’t seem to have much hesitation in whipping out the twin fingers. So if the goal umpire had little doubt, who decides to call for a video replay? The opposition, the field umpires, Hawkins?”

There’s no obvious, clear-cut way to go about it, especially without creating (largely unnecessary considering how rarely legitimate mistakes occur) disruptions.

Which is another sticking point, isn’t it?

Disruptions in footy aren’t the norm as they are in certain other sports that have adopted technology.

We’re not talking about American football or basketball, where there the sport already has a stop-start nature. We’re not talking about rugby league, where a pause in play already occurs after a score for the conversion attempt.

In footy, after a goal it’s straight back to the middle for the next bounce.

It remains to be seen whether the “100 per cent certain” field umpire would have overturned the goal on Friday night without a glance at the scoreboard.

But what does seem obvious, though, is after nearly 152 years without them, there’s no need to rush in video reviews.

Follow Michael on twitter @mdifabrizio

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