Yesterday morning, the AFL’s footy boss Steven Hocking joined Garry and Tim on SEN Breakfast to discuss the biggest issues confronting the game as we inch closer to the start of the season.
The new rules, in particular the change to the manning of the mark, were a hot topic.
There was much to dissect from that interview, however I was partially taken aback by Hocking’s comment about the challenges facing the AFL umpires.
“It’s a difficult game to officiate. There’s a responsibility on players and coaches to get this right. It’s not all at the umpires’ feet,” Hocking said.
The responsibility doesn’t just rest on the umpires to officiate the game accurately but it also lies at the feet of the coaches and players!
What he neglected to mention, however, was the responsibility of he and the AFL in making sure the game isn’t impossible to umpire accurately.
Unfortunately, that is fast becoming a reality.
Think of it this way - to be a successful umpire you need to be capable of the following:
Run up to 15kms a game, most of that at high speed.
You’ve got to bounce an odd shaped ball about 10 metres straight up in the air. If it’s a touch off centre you suffer the embarrassment of blowing the whistle, halting the play and recalling the ball - before throwing it up anticlimactically.
It’s exhausting physical work for these part-timers who on average are closer to 40 than 30 years of age.
But the physical test is the easy part.
Then they’ve got to make thousands of decisions in real time, such as; who is putting their hand up to nominate for a ruck contest, and were there only two rucks contesting at the stoppage?
When someone takes a mark or gets a free kick, they have to make a call on whether the opposition player running past at full speed placed a toe nail inside the protected 10-metre zone.
Additionally, they now need to decide if the man on the mark took a half step to the side. If he did you must ping him with a game changing 50-metre penalty that may result in a goal and change the momentum of the game.
We learnt during the week that no longer can a player do the 'Buddy arc' and step off the line whilst having a shot for goal. Umpy, did he play on or not?
They are, of course, doing all of this decision making while counting down the 30-second shot clock in their heads to make sure the kicker didn’t go over the allotted time.
Don’t get me started on the holding the ball adjudication. Did that player have prior opportunity or not? Did he dispose of the ball legally while being tackled?
And what was it that 'Clarko' (Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson) changed to the rule mid last season? The umps better be up to speed with the constant change in interruptions from AFL house.
Up the other end, did the defender do everything he could to have kept the ball in play when he cleared the 50 or should the umpire ping him for deliberate out of bounds?
It’s your call ump.
In the prior marking contest did the backman chop the arm of the forward or was that just his man exaggerating contact?
Did Dylan Grimes dive or will I give him a free kick?
There’s not the luxury of DRS like in cricket, hawk-eye in tennis. A coach can’t chuck a red challenge flag like they do in the NFL or motion with the helicopter signal as seen in the NBA to have another look should an AFL umpire make a howler of a decision.
A bad decision is a bad decision; there's no video replay to let them off.
Now after all that’s done, and if they weren’t distracted and exhausted enough, let’s make them sit down and vote on the most prestigious award our game will ever have to offer, the Brownlow Medal.
I’ve been hard on umpires during my time in the media, but when I sat down to think about it this week on the back of even more unnecessary rule changes this year, I realised it’s not the umpies I should be frustrated at, it’s the lawmakers who continue to tinker with our game and make their task nearly impossible.
AFL is the hardest sport to successfully officiate in the world and we just made it harder.
Who’d be an AFL umpire?