Richmond legend Matthew Richardson has voiced his displeasure at the current state of AFL rules.
Following a weekend where several games were in the spotlight for perceived excessive free kick counts, Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin launched a stringent defence of the game’s officials at his weekly press conference on Wednesday.
"I'm a bit disappointed this week that we get to a situation where everyone's now in a position where we're going to be quite negative towards the umpires," Goodwin said.
"We have to be quite careful as an industry that we don't go down that path and we continue to respect and want our young people to get into umpiring."
After hearing Goodwin’s comments, Richardson slammed the current station of the game’s rules, saying the stand rule and dissent interpretation had evolved into “something ridiculous”.
“I feel like most people aren’t negative about umpires,” he said on Sportsday.
“A lot of people are at pains to say this isn’t about the umpires, it’s about the rules they are being forced to interpret. It’s not the umpires - they’re doing the job they have to do. It’s a totally different situation that a lot of people are talking about.
“A lot of these rules aren’t working. There are too many 50m penalties and too many silly little rules, this dissent rule has gone too far and gone the way it wasn’t meant to go.
“I don’t like the stand rule, the protected rule is OK…these rules come in and then evolve. The dangerous tackle was brought in for a very good reason, but it has now evolved into something ridiculous.
“These rules evolve into something they’re not meant to be.”
Several experienced umpires are currently missing from the game due to injury and illness, thrusting more junior field umpires into the spotlight.