AFL want attitude change towards umpires

1) Stop changing the rules, and their interpretation, all of the time! 2) Try and get some consistency within the match itself (and cut out the ridiculous frees that are often paid by the non-officiating umpire and often affect the flow of the match). 3) Remove the microphones and numbers from the umpires backs. I for one do not want to hear from an umpire, nor do I need to know who he (or she) is.

Many comment about the impact of the new rules on the game, but I think the main issue is that the old holding the ball rule is rarely and unevenly applied. Try explaining it to a newcomer while watching a game. Pay the free when a player is correctly tackled and doesn’t make an attempt to get rid of the ball (even when there there is no prior opportunity), or incorrectly disposes of it (when there is prior opportunity).

If the AFL didn't keep making ridiculous new rules, it would make the umpires job a lot easier IMO.

Maybe the AFL could get rid of the rules that unduly punish players for trivial offences, eg the protected zone rule where sometimes the umpire will award a 50 metre penalty for a player doing nothing that impedes the player with the ball but mostly will ignore the player doing nothing that impedes the player with the ball.

It's the umpires that need to change their attitude. They constantly go out of their way to antagonise players with smart alec remarks. Razor Ray is the worst offender.

I feel the umpires' job is hard enough anyway without the AFL adding more and more rules and grey areas to the existing rules. They need to be more black and white to avoid the arguments.

As someone who has umpired a significant number of games (at a much lower level - which is actually harder than AFL level but without the scrutiny), I concur that it is a difficult game to umpire. However, I believe that most fans rarely recognise a legitimate free kick against their side - even after it is replayed several times. When watching games, I often wonder where a free kick came from or why one wasn't paid and most of the time a replay reveals the reason for the umpires decision. However, we rarely get their perspective or angle. Maybe with modern technology we can get more shots from their angle. As they are constantly moving, this may be impossible. I also wonder whether many of the commentators actually know the rules (I know a lot of the fans don't). I've always thought the awarding of marks for kicks covering about 15m as one of the most difficult judgements to make. I wonder if a series of small dots around the ground spaced 15m apart, would assist the umpires in judging these marks? Generally, I think the umpires do a good job and usually make fewer mistakes than the players or the commentators. No one's perfect and we all make mistakes.

I think they could start by engaging with certain commentators. There's rather too much focus on umpiring decisions in the broadcast these days. The worst offender is Dwayne Russell, who doesn't appear to have ever understood the difference between calling the match and offering special comments. His speciality is to frequently exclaim in affected disbelief 'No free kick paid by the umpire!', regardless of whether anything has happened to merit such an intervention. There definitely needs to be scrutiny of the officiating. But the media's default position of instant outrage at every little event doesn't exactly lead to an atmosphere of quality constructive feedback.

I try to avoid AFL bashing (because I think it is generally unhinged) and I am largely a fan of rule changes over the last couple of years Having said that, Steve Hocking needs to look a little closer to home if he is worried about perceptions of umpire performance The game has a large number of difficult-to-adjudicate rules that are largely unavoidable leading to krapshoots of when decisions are paid or not. The 15 metre rules for marking and bouncing are examples of these. The umpire needs to effectively judge 15 metres by sight and intuition. Historically they have (rightly) erred on the side of caution, allowing marks under 15 metres and players to run often over 20 without bouncing. But what has happened this year? In the first two rounds it was business as usual with a rare "play on" call if the ball travelled clearly less than 15 metres. But since then play on calls have been happening far more regularly. Why is that? Is it because Chief Opps has demanded umpires be coached to call play on more often to stifle kick-mark possession style tactics? Again, I'm not one of the "leave-the-game-alone" set or the "gaaarn, how incompetent are the AFL" set but FFS, if you are going to change several rules in a season and leave ambiguity hanging around key areas (.e sliding, ruck etc) then there is an even stronger onus on not interfering in season with interpretations to try tilt the playing field to styles you prefer. How the F is that helping the umpires job?

Full-time umpiring will never happen and has so many flaws most especially when it comes to recruitment as you'll find all the umpires work in jobs that are highly educated and highly paying and they will not give that away for a twenty year career umpiring footy.

We've heard it all before. The question is, when will they get ti right....winter is coming. They need to go back to two umpires IMO which will mitigate the confusion by a third. And all this rubbish about changing attitudes towards umpires. C'mon, going to the footy and abusing umpires is part of the game. If we want the umpiring to improve the AFL have to recruit a squad of full-time umpires that umpire the AFL and VFL/WAFL/SANFL/NEAFL games. If they umpire an AFL game they get paid at a higher rate. If they umpire a local league match they get paid a lesser rate. Umpires are dropped and promoted based upon their performance in each game. The standard of umpiring is getting worse and something needs to be done about it.

The AFL don't want the best team to win in a fair competition. They want to manipulate the competition so a different team wins each year. The rules are just one of the tools they use to achieve this.

When a player running with the ball is tackled, and the ball falls free, it is called play on. If the tackled player tries to kick the ball but it hits the ground before he drop kicks it (quite effectively) he is penalized for illegal disposal...as happened to Mundy. He was told, "drop kick". The droppie is not illegal. We want players disposing the ball...not dropping it. Umpires must not make up new rules mid-game. The thrust of comments is correct. Stop changing rules. Just tell umps to umpire all rules, not just the rule of the week.

“We have got considerable uncertainty, and we believe that is healthy,” Hocking said. And right there is the problem. You don't makeup rules to promote considerable uncertainty — that's just downright negligence from the custodians of our game. Every single member of the AFL Commission should stand down if they truly believe such rubbish!

Hocking needs to admit he is a big part of the problem, but of course that will never happen.

There's too much inconsistency too. I watched a game on the weekend where one player was pushed over the boundary line, but no free kick, then 2 minutes later another player was pushed over the boundary line and awarded a free kick which he subsequently kicked a goal from. There's far too much umpire influence in a game - you just know that when a team is behind in the last quarter they're going to get a couple of easy free kicks to help them back into the game. It happens every week.

how about the umps get rid of rule of the week ? Hawks get creamed one week for some low level push and shove and we never see it again.

The main reason IMO that people get frustrated with umpires is that we don't know what many free kicks are for.Maybe we need to get the scoreboard to put up what every free kick is for.Obviously umpires would signal the decision to the scoreboard operater.Afl is a hard game to umpire but I regularly attend matches and don't think umpire abuse is that bad.

That's typical AFL for you - it's not our fault we ruined the rules of the game, it's your fault for questioning us.