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Opinion

You’re kidding me: Why Collingwood should've beaten West Coast, and what the AFL can do to end unfair umpire decisions

Roar Rookie
9th April, 2022
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Roar Rookie
9th April, 2022
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The siren sounds to end the fourth quarter at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.

The Eagles’ players raise their arms in celebration, but the people who have done most of the work are those men in yellow.

I’m talking about, you guessed it, the umpires.

The free-kick count is actually in favour of the Pies, but this mostly came from 100 per cent high tackles from Willie Rioli on Jack Ginnivan.

Somehow, the Eagles moved the ball from a stoppage in Collingwood’s goal square to a goal from Liam Duggan through two free kicks.

A ridiculous push-in-the-back call from a tackle where both players were on ground level left James Brayshaw speechless, and it was a holding-the-man free kick in their forward 50.

The last five minutes were three straight Eagles goals, but the Pies couldn’t do anything without, “free kick Jack Darling – in the back. Stand, Darcy”.

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Darcy Moore

(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

This rubbish has to stop.

The AFL needs to reconsider some of their rules.

On Friday night, Brisbane were robbed by a non-paid push in the back from Tom Hawkins on Harris Andrews.

It was a similar case to last year when Zac Bailey tackled Mark Blicavs, which would be payed 99 times out of 100, but for some reason the arms were raised and play on was called.

We need to see some clarification about what is holding the ball, and what is a push in the back.

There needs to be some guidelines set apart from some nonsense about both players moving forward.

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Sometimes the umpire is blindsided, but this cannot be the case every single time, and an out-of-position umpire is usually watching to make sure of things.

Gillon McLachlan and his workers have to rack their brains to think of a solution.

AFL Chief Executive Officer Gillon McLachlan speaks to the media

(Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Many of these ridiculous calls usually occur in the last few minutes of the game, so it is understandable for the umpires to become stressed in these high-pressure moments when all of Kardinia Park is screaming at them.

What if the league introduced a new rule where in the final quarter, if the scores were close enough together, another few umpires would be sent onto the field to officiate the game all together, instead of a lone Matty Stevic.

The league could give this a try as it would lessen the rate of controversial mistakes and make sure there were multiple pairs of eyes watching at every time.

This would be helpful if the crowd all wanted ball and the umpire paid it in the heat of the moment, although the player tackled has no prior ability, and another umpire can call a ball up.

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This idea should be used by the league if they want or fix all their umpire problems that many have complained about for years.

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