Whateley: Stop... please stop - intrusion of technology will ruin our game

The intrusion of technology will not be the salvation of our sport. It will be its ruination.

Mark my words.

You think holding the ball is stuffed – and it is – but it’s got nothing on the whims of the ARC that have been unleashed.

What we saw at Marvel Stadium on Sunday was not an intrusion… it was an invasion.

And like most invasions, it was ill-conceived, clumsy and flawed in its execution.

In the second quarter we saw the most grotesque overreach yet under the guise of video review and the pursuit of perfection in decision making.

And it failed by every measure.

Go back and watch for yourself … with 9:30 remaining in the second term.

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera takes a long range shot at goal.

It slides across the face.

Watch particularly the positioning of the goal umpire and the boundary umpire.

The goal umpire is perfectly placed staring straight down the line.

The boundary umpire is on duty at the behind post barely a metre from the contest.

Instantly both signal the ball a behind.

Without any hesitation the goal umpire pats the chest and the boundary umpire stretches the right arm to signal the position of the ball.

Each does so definitively and without hesitation.

There is no doubt about the positioning of the ball from the eye witnesses in real time.

It was not a mark to Rowan Marshall. It wasn’t even close.

One minute and one second later came the fateful intervention from the voice of God that changed the nature of the sport.

Looking at this angle, we can see the ball is controlled before crossing the behind line.

In the words of the immortal Luke Skywalker… every word of what you just said was wrong.

The voice of God was so sure of what the technology showed he stopped the game and ordered the mark to Marshall be paid resulting in a shot at goal.

37 seconds of game time had elapsed.

This was the pre-season change Greg Swann told us about at the Super Bowl to correct what happened when the Crows were robbed by a patently incorrect call against the Swans two seasons ago.

And as always happens, the quest for correction gave us a new level of howler.

The evidence that was presented as definitive failed every level of examination.

Beginning with the relevant law.

A mark is not completed when the player touches the ball.

First contact isn’t control… it’s why defenders are able to spoil the ball out of a player's hands before it is judged a completed mark.

Yet in the video adjudication the moment the ball reaches the hands is a mark.

Then there’s the slavish devotion to limited technology.

Compulsory reading here is the Dave Barham piece in The Age last week who pulled the curtain back on the illusions and inadequacies of camera angles shown on television versus reality.

God in the ARC used a camera fitted to the left hand goalpost… looking through the right hand goal post to determine the humans directly in line with the ball were wrong.

This is why goal and boundary umpires have lost their nerve.

Even when they absolutely know they are right they are still getting overruled.

The camera in the post is subject to all manner of variation from positioning to the zoom lens.

We have previously demonstrated a contradiction between the camera on one post showing all of the ball over all of the line while the camera on the other post shows the opposite.

It becomes a game of choose your own adventure.

Yet we have allowed a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional world to hold sway.

This is the worship of false idols.

So the game was stopped yesterday.

Nobody watching or playing had any clue what was being done.

And the mark was paid.

Marshall was allowed to take a shot and kick the goal.

If the AFL reviews these events today and determines this is exactly what was intended and will be empowered and encouraged henceforth then the game will take a giant leap toward ruin.

The encroachment of technology into the decision making has been dreadful this season.

Well-intentioned as always… flawed in reality.

It started with the ARC overruling an umpire on an insufficient intent call masquerading as a last disposal out of bounds infringement.

The truth was never admitted.

It escalated to a doctor in the ARC overruling the medical practitioner on sight.

The desire is appropriate oversight… it is actually poor practice.

Let’s get the decisions right is the greatest fallacy in sport.

And it’s at that alter the AFL worships right now.

My sincere plea as someone who has seen this across 30 years in numerous other sports is please… stop.

Use yesterday’s intrusion as the moment to say this is not actually what we want.

Technology will never deliver the perfect game.

But used like this it will tear at its fabric.

Stop.

Please… stop.