It was last Friday night at the MCG and Richmond was in the process of causing the biggest upset of the 2011 season. With only a few minutes remaining in the final term, the young Tigers led the more fancied Saints by six points.
But just when the game desperately didn’t need an incorrect decision to interfere with this unpredictable spectacle, the umpires were there to spoil the party – as if on cue.
Umpire Scott Jeffrey penalised Richmond defender Luke McGuane with deliberately handballing the footy over the opposition’s goal line.
A free kick was then awarded to Saints skipper Nick Riewoldt and he calmly slotted a classy banana goal from the forward pocket to draw scores level.
It was a crucial moment in the game. And the decision wasn’t just wrong – it was avoidable.
A player should only be penalised for a deliberate rushed behind if the umpire interprets the player was under no defensive pressure. However, McGuane had every right to handball the ball through the posts because he had no prior opportunity and was being tackled at the time.
The next morning, the umpires’ department conceded the decision was wrong.
However, it was too late for Richmond and its supporters because the free kick changed the momentum of the game and cost the team a late goal in an already tense final quarter.
There’s a simple solution to prevent similar episodes in the future. The AFL needs to hire professional umpires.
Today, the AFL is a professionally run business. The majority of people who work for it are employed on a full-time basis and dedicate invaluable time and effort to make the game the product it is.
So it’s staggering to note that umpires – the people who adjudicate this great game and play such an important role in how it is run – are on the part-time payroll.
Aussie Rules is an extremely difficult game to adjudicate and it’s not getting any easier with the constant introduction of new rules along with the game’s ever-increasing tempo.
Umpires are now being forced to make more interpretative decisions than ever before.
With the game being played at such a frenetic pace and with so much congestion, particularly around stoppages, they are finding it incredibly difficult to distinguish exactly what is going on.
The McGuane decision is a good example.
Every umpire records and analyses the game they officiate in on weekends. Umpire coaches also attend every game and often sit down with their ‘students’ to discuss decision-making, as well as bouncing, match management and skill acquisition.
In reality though, it’s impossible for umpires to balance full-time work with their demanding weekend responsibilities.
Modern-day umpires have to undertake their game reviews around their full-time jobs. If they didn’t have to do that, more productive work would result on the field.
Umpires today are an intelligent bunch: Brett Rosebury is an accountant and works full-time at Tickemaster’s national office; Steve McBurney is a crime examiner and barrister, while Chris Kamolins is a sales representative for Fisher and Paykel Healthcare.
They may be smart, but they’re not superheroes and they can’t be expected to perform at optimum levels for both jobs.
Adjudicating an AFL game is extremely demanding on both the body and the mind. Unlike players, umpires remain on the ground for the entire match and cover just as many kilometres as players do.
They don’t rotate and only rest at the end of each quarter, meaning their aerobic capacity must be at an incredibly high level.
Mentally, it’s just as tough. While keeping up with the game physically, umpires must remain focused and show immense concentration for the entire match.
They have to judge approximately 1,500 transactions per game and just one wrong decision could ruin the rest of their performance. Not to mention the tens of thousands of supporters they have to deal with, who scream at them from the sidelines.
Footy needs its adjudicators to spend as much time as possible critiquing and analysing their own performances.
However, if the AFL is to introduce full-time umpires, it’s likely the game would lose men of such intelligence and calibre.
Would aspiring umpires be prepared to put their post-football careers in fields like physiotherapy, law or accounting on hold? Would the AFL be able to match the salary of some of the current umpires’ full-time jobs? It’s debatable.
But the league needs to experiment with a few professional umpires to start off with. Then everyone involved with the game will see that full-time umpiring is the way of the future.
When someone works harder at their chosen craft, they improve dramatically.
When a professional musician can’t play a certain phrase in a piece of music, they practice it until they can no longer play it wrong. When a basketball player is struggling from beyond the arc, they shoot three-point shots at practice over and over before heading home for dinner.
The game of AFL has improved dramatically over the past 20 to 30 years because the game’s personnel have signed on a full-time basis.
If umpires join the full-time payroll, correct decisions will become more frequent.
They wouldn’t get every decision right, but they would get the blatantly obvious ones right.
And it would mean us fans leave games of footy with little regret.
Justin
Guest
Why are umpires protected.? Why are coaches and players not pretected.? Why do the Afl fans suffer when their teams loose to the umps.? The answer is this the Afl won't ever let umpires be penalised for bad umpiring. If Chris Scott - Jimmy Bartel or Scott Watters - Nick Rewold complained about the umpires the, Afl would fine them and treat them with distrespect. The upires should be made accountable too but it will never happen. End result is the Afl supporters go home upset because once agian the umpire screwed up. Not all umpires screw up and the majority are good but the players get into trouble for saying the upiring was bad. Friday nights game on the 20-4-2012 was deplorable 0 out of ten for the upmpires they cost Saint kilda the game and i don't even like the Saints. Those umpires on this night need glasses and a rule book. If i was running the Afl properly i would give the umpires who performed poorly a big holiday unpaid. Most umpires are very good in all honesty, its just the fact the Afl won't make umpires accountable like the coaches and the players. If a player - coach stuffs up the whole worl knows. If an ump stuffs up it is swept under the carpet. Really every one who is a decent honest human being knows on the 12-4-2012 the saints really won or should of won, but the umpires gave a least 4 goals to Freemantle through bad decisions. Everyone makes mistakes hell ive made millions. But i have to be accountable for my mistakes like Afl coaches - players. Why can't the umpires be accountable.? All in all the umps are good but not made accountable. No fans no Afl.!
Sherrin-Burley-Faulkner
Guest
Derek Linsell said "Interesting article but umpires are still human. " Did you write this with a smile on your face !. ....no way, sub human at best.
When they get it wrong they cost team's game (see Richmond on Friday night). The point is the umpire was uncertain about the interpretation of the rule. If he had spent more time studying the rule on a full-time basis was certain about the rule, we probably wouldn't be talking about this. Yes the standard of umpiring is incredibly high, but even umpires would admit they always need to aim higher. And if they want to get better, full-time umpiring is the next step.
Personally I would rather a third umpire than go to video umpires. If you watch the NRL you will see that quite often the video is inconclusive and also often returned for the "Refs call". It also takes a hell of a lot of time and would go against the AFLs present policy of trying to slow the game down whilst also making the total game time longer. I do however agree with the video for "goal" decisions.
BigAl
Guest
It wasn't the umps. fault ! - it's a stupid rule. All rules which rely on the Ump. 'reading the mind' of a player are stupid !
bj I understand your point and we would hope that if the umps were full time that they would be more proficient but that cannot completely rule out human failure. Imagine how many mistakes there were when we only had one umpire.
LOL obviously he hasn't.
EricBloom
Roar Rookie
When umpires make 1500 decisions a game with three or four incorrect calls, that is just human. To have a team of full time umpires, it will cost the league over $2million to have umpired for 8 games each week (assuming they are on 60k sallaries) Thats hardly worth it to reduce the incorrect decions by 1 or 2. What happens when they get it wrong?
Jaceman
Guest
This fulltime umpires is a bad idea. There have been instances in other sports where adjudicators who are reliant solely on their umpiring income to be subject to subtle pressure from the sports administrators to umpire to get a certain outcome. For example the NBA referee Donaghy (see below) suggested that NBA referees favoured the LA Lakers in playoffs to catch up and beat their smaller market opponents because there would be higher ratings if the Lakers were in the finals. While these are allegations (from an ex felon), its not hard to imagine that umpires would see the advantage in a year when the AFL was entering TV rights negotiations that close games and organising a for example Sydney or a strong Mmelbourne team in a Grand Final would be beneficial to the AFLs case of strong TV ratings in rights discussions. Just as newspapers dont tell journalists what to write but rather if you are a journalist whose philosophy is in accord with the newspaper editoroial policy you are more likely to have your articles printed (or get better position in the paper). Having another career gives you a wider perspective and you are less subject to implicit pressure from the games administrators. Super league had full-time RL referees and the inference was that your position relied on your ability to provide "entertainment" for the TV viewers. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?id=3436503
It's a strange one. Most of the US sports have pro referees. The NRL - the AFL's main rival - has them. Surely the AFL will follow in the footsteps sooner rather than later.
Maggie Olive
Guest
I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that the consequences of professional umpiring would be that football wold lose those umpires with other professional careers to turn to. I suggest that many umpires turn to umpiring rather than playing for exactly the reason that they can continue a career and NOT have to devote their entire lives to the exhausting regime of the elite sportsman. Whilst they are undoubtedly extremely fit, they don't need to devote the whole week to a game. They are therefore able to follow their professional career path that will ensure income long after they can no longer keep up the pace. It is a quandry indeed.
Derek Linsell
Guest
Interesting article but umpires are still human. When you consider the point you make that the umpires make 1500 decisions per game, being professional is not going to change the error rate which i understand is very low at present.
Redb
Roar Guru
I agree its not desirable and would probably get over used like in cricket. Then at some point we need to accept the umpires are human and cant always be in the best position to judge and thus will make mistakes.
Brett McKay
Guest
I'm genuinely surprised to read AFL doesn't have full-time umps, I just naturally assumed they were and had been for years. Heck, even rugby has fulltime refs!!
It's a good point. Due to the fact AFL umpires make a lot of decisions base don interpretation, they often have to explain the decision to the players in order for them to completely understand. In NRL, the majority of decisions are black and white and don't require a lot of interpretation.
I hope we don't have third umpires. As we've seen from the NAB Cup, video goal umpiring takes up way too much time for a game that is played at such a frenetic place. When umpires have gone to the video, it's often to see if an opposition player has touched the footy off the boot. It's tedious and difficult to distinguish whether they touched it or not because the technology isn't there.
Alfred Chan
Expert
A trained goal umpire would have overturned that decision if allowed to.
Redb
Roar Guru
I dont beleive we are off far video umpires it this keeps up. IF a 3rd umpire reviewed MCGuane's penalty for deliberate rushed behind they would overturn it. He was clearly under pressure and this was obvious on the box.
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
you never heard Bill Harrigan.
C Judd, Carlton, 3 votes
Guest
In the good old days umpires who stuffed up where 'sent to the bush' for a few weeks. I get the impression that some AFL umps want to make a name for themselves. Razor Ray just loves the attention. I say, blow your whistle, make the decision and keep your mouth shut. Although I don't closely follow NRL, it doesn't seem that their refs have similar egos to the AFL officials. Yep make them full time, keep them accountable, resource them better and hopefully they will make less errors.