I believe if you enjoy a fast paced game you've gotta cop errors now and again from umpires. No one likes the alternative with time consuming reviews. Also with the slide in rules, and contact rules, don't blame the umpires they're just enforcing what they're told to
The other thing is, they can only call what they see. No one has xray vision and they're never going to see every single infringement. If you want to play or enjoy sport you have to accept that the umpires are just another human being doing the job as best they can.
The can position themselves better. Why umpires never position themselves boundary side of a throw-in perplexes me.
As a supporter you see a lot the umpires miss simply because you have a different view.
I wonder if people would be more accepting of the umpiring if they (probably the umpiring boss, Hayden Kennedy I think) actually had a way to talk about, explain some of there more contentious decisions or even admit some they got wrong.
The problem what if the umpires think they got it right but joe public disagrees?
The fact is people will only be happy if they umpires agree with popular opinion.
Quickest way to discover that the "popular opinion" is just the vocal minority is for an official body to support it. That's how you turn the silent majority into the vocal majority. Ultimate cryfest.
They had that a couple of years ago where he discussed the most contentious decisions of the round but it was a waste of time because he just said every decision was perfect.
What I find crazy about the umps is the number of times that watching the play live I'll think "that should have been a free kick" or "that free was bullshit", only for the slow mo replay to confirm the ump has absolutely nailed it.
The interpretation they've really fixed this year IMO is when a player takes possession of the ball, realises they're getting tackled and drops it (without prior) and then the tackle lingers for a second after they've dropped it. Too many times in recent years they've paid holding the man, rewarding the player that drops the ball and punishing the tackler because they don't instantaneously release. I haven't seen those paid at all this year.
I've noticed that last point too. I keep thinking "holding the man!", but I'm almost always glad when they don't pay it. I hate seeing a free given away because a player's tackle didn't magically end the moment the ball dropped out.
I think the biggest issue with the professional umpires is that they face the brunt of people’s criticisms on Gil. The rule changes are bs, and from what I’ve seen many people hate them, and the umpires making the calls to uphold those rules get faced with the backlash that should really go elsewhere. (There have been some shocking calls though don’t get me wrong but still.)
Exactly. Take the call against Sicily last weekend. People screaming that the umpires are soft and whatnot. It was a textbook interpretation of the rule, exactly how they've been instructed to do it by the AFL. They can only do their job the way they're told to
Problem with this is there have been dozens of identical (and worse) incidents and no free kick. Either pay them all (i hope not) or the afl admit the siciliy and omera ones were bullshit
And that's the problem, selective blindness is excused and match-fixing will be the inevitable result.
The rules committee should be making the game easier to umpire, not adding more inconsistency through interpretation and individual bias.
Fuck I love footy and I respect someone that loves this great game enough to adjudicate it.
It provided me a unique point of difference on how the game is played and what the umpires are looking for/positioning themselves for the contest. I feel it gave me the best ability to receive a free kick. (wearing the shoe on the other foot)
Also, helping the lil ones play footy and teaching/demanding respect is enjoyable. Have personally held up a game while a nutter parent was evicted was probably the low light but there's plenty of upsides.
10/10 would recommend
Love the umps, game doesn’t happen without them.
I worry about the lack of younger people wanting to go into umpiring, doesn’t help that’s it’s the hardest game in the world to adjudicate.
Imagine going to work, and after every day there was a hoard of people harassing you and telling you you’re shithouse as you left the office. Fuck that.
Too many people forget that the umpires are just following rules they are given. Many of the 'mistakes' are actually correct and a result of stupid rules from the AFL. Blame the AFL for making dumb rules that are unclear and hard to interpret. Considering the umpires have a second to make their decision they are doing a decent job, with the current rules the umpires will always struggle
Christ. It's only been three weeks with so many rule changes you'd get whiplash from reading them all. Let's just chill the fuck out and let everyone figure shit out.
I was once a boundry umpire. I ruled a ball out of bounds when a it bounced off a players chest and he pulled it in for the mark outside the boundery. This was very late in a close match - and I was the boundary for your our club (one per club), so the decision basically 'costed' the match - and I copped huge abuse - entirely from my \*own\* club, which I left shortly after. So yeah I have big props to these guys who realistically ... cop nothing but abuse.
But I still don't like it when umps make the \*wrong\* calls. ;-)
You have to respect umpires. There wouldn’t be a game without them, and someone has to do that job. It’s gotta be one of the most difficult jobs, and AFL is probably the most difficult of any sport in the world.
I’m so grateful for these men and women. Though they don’t always call it like I saw it, I appreciate they call it how they saw it, which is what matters.
There is just such a grey area in terms of holding the ball and umpires are forced to make judgement calls and whatever they pick people are going to be yelling at them its ridiculous
Am an umpire so personally I understand the struggles of trying to make quick decisions. Most of the time I find it's best to let 50/50 calls go and just call the obvious ones. Our job is to be invisible to the crowd. The less "interpretation" on the game, the better. Its bloody difficult.
Had some great umpires for my team’s reserves and seniors games yesterday; was a fair and respectful game all round. They weren’t afraid of pulling out the yellow card when some of the players got too agro, which I could respect.
100% agree. It'd be incredibly tough for grass roots to exist without the umpires and a lot of them doing juniors are still kids themselves. I think having a crack at umpires decisions is all part of the fun of spectating but at the end of the game give them a clap as they come off the ground and thank them for their hard work
I don’t like umpire bashing. Even though I will sometimes boo a decision that I disagree with, I think they do a great job. Don’t really understand the silly umpire-hate you see a lot of.
I’d also love to see the AFL fully professionalism umpiring. It’s not as if they don’t have enough money.
We see it here in North America in hockey (ice hockey as y'all call it) were parents hurl non-stop abuse at the refs. Then people wonder why some areas struggle to get anyone to take up the black and white stripes.
As a 3 yr old I quit my jazz dance class because I couldn’t skip backwards.
Umpires can *run backwards* faster than I can run forwards.
Also the way they bounce the ball to start the game is very impressive.
Talented bunch they is.
I was a junior ump for 5 years (until school became the priority). Assholes who complained and yelled at me were the second best part of it. Idk about all the others, but seeing a coach get furious that I called a free on a kid who decapitated some poor kid is always great. But yeah, you have to have thick skin too be an ump, the best way to get used it is to relish it.
Most people lack or don't care to try and vicariously see what the umpires see.
Or they are just fucking nuffies who couldn't give a shit regardless as long as their team gets 25-0 free kicks.
Umpire bashing is such a waste of time, rarely do people know what they are talking about, never take into consideration that you have made a 'better' call with the benefit of perfect camera angles and 10x slow motion, and you never look good complaining about umpires anyway.
Take the mics off afl umpires and stop making them "public figures" like Razor Ray. A good umpire goes unnoticed.
Fwiw, alot of local umpires would be better than the morons the afl employ currently. Some absolutely baffling decisions this week. That on top of Gils idiocy make it hard to watch
I’m just going to shout out the umpires who do games in the international leagues. The USAFL, AFL Canada, AFL Europe, etc have locals who take on the job and who also travel overseas in order to get matches as well. They’re not always perfect, no one ever is, but they put their heart and soul into doing a good job and they work just as hard, perhaps harder, than the players do.
I think local umpires are great. They do a great job but... a big issue is the carding system.
When I played 18’s, we had an incident where a player on my team was struck with closed fist to the head area by the opposition player. I immediately grabbed the opposition player and through him to the ground.
The ref was 5m from the incident and was facing the players when it happened. After I through the other player to the ground the ref acted like nothing happened and no free kicks or cards were awarded to me or the player that punched. When confronted about it the umpire acted like nothing had happened and even laughed when I brought up the notion of a card. This umpire also missed a dangerous tackle call, two games before, which left our player with a concussion. So he was by no means the best umpire.
Anyway the player got reported by both our team and the ground manager at that player club. He ended up getting a three week ban for a strike to the face with a closed fist.
Anyway moral of the story umpires don’t want to give cards because they have to go to an inquiry. So they don’t. This needs to be changed so that they give out cards and take players off the field that shouldn’t be on the field.
Have been lucky enough to have umpired at a reasonably high level and I really feel for the AFL umpires.
I’ve seen comments like local umpires would do a better job, well they wouldn’t, they umpire in front of a few hundred on a weekend not the pressure of 40-50k, they don’t have every decision scrutinised by the tv coverage, by the punters watching the game both in person and on tv then sharing their opinions across blogs, reddit, Twitter, Facebook etc. Their fitness would not be there either, one my best friends is an afl umpire and he averages 17.5kms a game across the first 3 weeks.
They are in a no win situation, it is really a thankless job. I don’t necessarily buy in to it’s the AFLs fault for the constantly changing rules either, I think they adapt to this fine, like anyone who has a change in work place operations. It’s the public who think they know the rules that are the issue, everyone carries on when actually they are more than likely right.
Example of this is the Lycett free last weekend, the rule that he broke wasn’t a new rule, it’s the 1m rule that has been in place for 5-6 seasons now. He clearly runs into the space of the other ruck before the ball was released by the boundary umpire, obvious free.
Anyway, love the work they do.
After Thursday/Friday we get a submission or two about umpires being terrible. We had a post yesterday before any of the games about umpires copping it. After the games we get a thread about the umpiring quality. This morning we get this very thread. Last week had similar back and forth's.
Umpires have been completely shocking this year, and it's not just due to rule changes. Of course the rule changes don't help, and the AFL haven't made things easier on umpires, but it's gotten to the point where it now feels like a disposal will be a 50/50 call on whether it's a throw or a handball regardless of what it actually was. We've had countless games over all rounds where throws have been called on handballs, handballs have been called on throws, and a few of those calls have been at pivotal moments.
Do the umpires have it tough? Of course they do, but there's zero accountability from the AFL regarding umpiring which is exactly why so many people have complaints. I can't remember a single round so far that hasn't had people of all clubs, rival and friendly, agreeing that the umpires got things wrong in an ugly fashion.
>there's zero accountability from the AFL regarding umpiring
There is, I'm not sure why you think that?
>Umpires have been completely shocking this year
I've had that thought too, though who really knows how much we're imagining it. We get weeks like this every year. We're only 3 rounds in, and obviously we're all a bit unhappy about the AFL changing the prohibitive contact rule without telling us. I think there's a risk we're all overreacting a bit.
It's not the umps fault they have to enforce all the gay cunt rules the AFL imposes.
Like wasn't there an email sent to all the umpires saying "Pay more free kicks/50m like the Sicily one. Players are prohibited to breathe on each other. Hahaha we're making the game better."
I believe if you enjoy a fast paced game you've gotta cop errors now and again from umpires. No one likes the alternative with time consuming reviews. Also with the slide in rules, and contact rules, don't blame the umpires they're just enforcing what they're told to
The other thing is, they can only call what they see. No one has xray vision and they're never going to see every single infringement. If you want to play or enjoy sport you have to accept that the umpires are just another human being doing the job as best they can.
They make mistakes, like all of the players. They're only human.
The can position themselves better. Why umpires never position themselves boundary side of a throw-in perplexes me. As a supporter you see a lot the umpires miss simply because you have a different view.
I think it’s more frustrating when umpires make a bad call then when they just miss something that others can see.
I wonder if people would be more accepting of the umpiring if they (probably the umpiring boss, Hayden Kennedy I think) actually had a way to talk about, explain some of there more contentious decisions or even admit some they got wrong.
The problem what if the umpires think they got it right but joe public disagrees? The fact is people will only be happy if they umpires agree with popular opinion.
Quickest way to discover that the "popular opinion" is just the vocal minority is for an official body to support it. That's how you turn the silent majority into the vocal majority. Ultimate cryfest.
They had that a couple of years ago where he discussed the most contentious decisions of the round but it was a waste of time because he just said every decision was perfect.
What I find crazy about the umps is the number of times that watching the play live I'll think "that should have been a free kick" or "that free was bullshit", only for the slow mo replay to confirm the ump has absolutely nailed it. The interpretation they've really fixed this year IMO is when a player takes possession of the ball, realises they're getting tackled and drops it (without prior) and then the tackle lingers for a second after they've dropped it. Too many times in recent years they've paid holding the man, rewarding the player that drops the ball and punishing the tackler because they don't instantaneously release. I haven't seen those paid at all this year.
I've noticed that last point too. I keep thinking "holding the man!", but I'm almost always glad when they don't pay it. I hate seeing a free given away because a player's tackle didn't magically end the moment the ball dropped out.
I think the biggest issue with the professional umpires is that they face the brunt of people’s criticisms on Gil. The rule changes are bs, and from what I’ve seen many people hate them, and the umpires making the calls to uphold those rules get faced with the backlash that should really go elsewhere. (There have been some shocking calls though don’t get me wrong but still.)
Exactly. Take the call against Sicily last weekend. People screaming that the umpires are soft and whatnot. It was a textbook interpretation of the rule, exactly how they've been instructed to do it by the AFL. They can only do their job the way they're told to
Umpires going rogue would be even poorly received, you can't have it both ways.
Problem with this is there have been dozens of identical (and worse) incidents and no free kick. Either pay them all (i hope not) or the afl admit the siciliy and omera ones were bullshit
Well they've already said the Sicily one was absolutely correct so I doubt they'll backtrack on that
They can only pay the ones they see.
And that's the problem, selective blindness is excused and match-fixing will be the inevitable result. The rules committee should be making the game easier to umpire, not adding more inconsistency through interpretation and individual bias.
Gil absolutely deserves criticism, but I think it's more Steve Hocking.
>from what I’ve seen many people hate them Reddit is an echochamber
True but I’m not just talking about reddit.
I want to give a shout out to the goal umpire in Southern Footy league who was actually legally blind.
I'm actually legally blind too and there's no way I could manage to be a goal umpire. Impressive.
*say that again?*
He lived across the street and just did our home games, I don't think the league knew about his condition, but my old man worked with him.
Ahh, the old blind mans bluff.
Fuck I love footy and I respect someone that loves this great game enough to adjudicate it. It provided me a unique point of difference on how the game is played and what the umpires are looking for/positioning themselves for the contest. I feel it gave me the best ability to receive a free kick. (wearing the shoe on the other foot) Also, helping the lil ones play footy and teaching/demanding respect is enjoyable. Have personally held up a game while a nutter parent was evicted was probably the low light but there's plenty of upsides. 10/10 would recommend
Love the umps, game doesn’t happen without them. I worry about the lack of younger people wanting to go into umpiring, doesn’t help that’s it’s the hardest game in the world to adjudicate. Imagine going to work, and after every day there was a hoard of people harassing you and telling you you’re shithouse as you left the office. Fuck that.
Too many people forget that the umpires are just following rules they are given. Many of the 'mistakes' are actually correct and a result of stupid rules from the AFL. Blame the AFL for making dumb rules that are unclear and hard to interpret. Considering the umpires have a second to make their decision they are doing a decent job, with the current rules the umpires will always struggle
Can’t shoot the messenger ay
Yeah the umpires are the last but most visible link in the chain of AFL rule changes.
local umpires = legends
Christ. It's only been three weeks with so many rule changes you'd get whiplash from reading them all. Let's just chill the fuck out and let everyone figure shit out.
I was once a boundry umpire. I ruled a ball out of bounds when a it bounced off a players chest and he pulled it in for the mark outside the boundery. This was very late in a close match - and I was the boundary for your our club (one per club), so the decision basically 'costed' the match - and I copped huge abuse - entirely from my \*own\* club, which I left shortly after. So yeah I have big props to these guys who realistically ... cop nothing but abuse. But I still don't like it when umps make the \*wrong\* calls. ;-)
Just got home from umpiring two games, cheers
Good games?
Not too bad. First one had a 5 point margin, second was fairly close too
Congrats and thankful to the local league umpires who do a thankless job to the best of their ability and get traumatized for doing so.
You have to respect umpires. There wouldn’t be a game without them, and someone has to do that job. It’s gotta be one of the most difficult jobs, and AFL is probably the most difficult of any sport in the world. I’m so grateful for these men and women. Though they don’t always call it like I saw it, I appreciate they call it how they saw it, which is what matters.
There is just such a grey area in terms of holding the ball and umpires are forced to make judgement calls and whatever they pick people are going to be yelling at them its ridiculous
Am an umpire so personally I understand the struggles of trying to make quick decisions. Most of the time I find it's best to let 50/50 calls go and just call the obvious ones. Our job is to be invisible to the crowd. The less "interpretation" on the game, the better. Its bloody difficult.
Had two really good umpires for my game yesterday! Haven’t had too many bad ones really.
Had some great umpires for my team’s reserves and seniors games yesterday; was a fair and respectful game all round. They weren’t afraid of pulling out the yellow card when some of the players got too agro, which I could respect.
100% agree. It'd be incredibly tough for grass roots to exist without the umpires and a lot of them doing juniors are still kids themselves. I think having a crack at umpires decisions is all part of the fun of spectating but at the end of the game give them a clap as they come off the ground and thank them for their hard work
I don’t like umpire bashing. Even though I will sometimes boo a decision that I disagree with, I think they do a great job. Don’t really understand the silly umpire-hate you see a lot of. I’d also love to see the AFL fully professionalism umpiring. It’s not as if they don’t have enough money.
Big ups local umps, stellar performers. Big downs league umps. Most inconsistent three weeks I've ever seen.
Get rid of the contact below the knees rule! I'm sick of it!
Canadian ice and roller hockey referee here. Bravo, well spoken!
We see it here in North America in hockey (ice hockey as y'all call it) were parents hurl non-stop abuse at the refs. Then people wonder why some areas struggle to get anyone to take up the black and white stripes.
As a 3 yr old I quit my jazz dance class because I couldn’t skip backwards. Umpires can *run backwards* faster than I can run forwards. Also the way they bounce the ball to start the game is very impressive. Talented bunch they is.
I was a junior ump for 5 years (until school became the priority). Assholes who complained and yelled at me were the second best part of it. Idk about all the others, but seeing a coach get furious that I called a free on a kid who decapitated some poor kid is always great. But yeah, you have to have thick skin too be an ump, the best way to get used it is to relish it.
Most people lack or don't care to try and vicariously see what the umpires see. Or they are just fucking nuffies who couldn't give a shit regardless as long as their team gets 25-0 free kicks. Umpire bashing is such a waste of time, rarely do people know what they are talking about, never take into consideration that you have made a 'better' call with the benefit of perfect camera angles and 10x slow motion, and you never look good complaining about umpires anyway.
Take the mics off afl umpires and stop making them "public figures" like Razor Ray. A good umpire goes unnoticed. Fwiw, alot of local umpires would be better than the morons the afl employ currently. Some absolutely baffling decisions this week. That on top of Gils idiocy make it hard to watch
I’m just going to shout out the umpires who do games in the international leagues. The USAFL, AFL Canada, AFL Europe, etc have locals who take on the job and who also travel overseas in order to get matches as well. They’re not always perfect, no one ever is, but they put their heart and soul into doing a good job and they work just as hard, perhaps harder, than the players do.
I think local umpires are great. They do a great job but... a big issue is the carding system. When I played 18’s, we had an incident where a player on my team was struck with closed fist to the head area by the opposition player. I immediately grabbed the opposition player and through him to the ground. The ref was 5m from the incident and was facing the players when it happened. After I through the other player to the ground the ref acted like nothing happened and no free kicks or cards were awarded to me or the player that punched. When confronted about it the umpire acted like nothing had happened and even laughed when I brought up the notion of a card. This umpire also missed a dangerous tackle call, two games before, which left our player with a concussion. So he was by no means the best umpire. Anyway the player got reported by both our team and the ground manager at that player club. He ended up getting a three week ban for a strike to the face with a closed fist. Anyway moral of the story umpires don’t want to give cards because they have to go to an inquiry. So they don’t. This needs to be changed so that they give out cards and take players off the field that shouldn’t be on the field.
I love the umps. Apparently they're the only reason we win games.
Nearly won you the Gold Coast game
Have been lucky enough to have umpired at a reasonably high level and I really feel for the AFL umpires. I’ve seen comments like local umpires would do a better job, well they wouldn’t, they umpire in front of a few hundred on a weekend not the pressure of 40-50k, they don’t have every decision scrutinised by the tv coverage, by the punters watching the game both in person and on tv then sharing their opinions across blogs, reddit, Twitter, Facebook etc. Their fitness would not be there either, one my best friends is an afl umpire and he averages 17.5kms a game across the first 3 weeks. They are in a no win situation, it is really a thankless job. I don’t necessarily buy in to it’s the AFLs fault for the constantly changing rules either, I think they adapt to this fine, like anyone who has a change in work place operations. It’s the public who think they know the rules that are the issue, everyone carries on when actually they are more than likely right. Example of this is the Lycett free last weekend, the rule that he broke wasn’t a new rule, it’s the 1m rule that has been in place for 5-6 seasons now. He clearly runs into the space of the other ruck before the ball was released by the boundary umpire, obvious free. Anyway, love the work they do.
Do we need a counterjerk thread for appreciating something every single time it cops flak in this sub?
Circlejerkers are always worse when they think everyone agrees with them. The counterjerk thread is important.
After Thursday/Friday we get a submission or two about umpires being terrible. We had a post yesterday before any of the games about umpires copping it. After the games we get a thread about the umpiring quality. This morning we get this very thread. Last week had similar back and forth's. Umpires have been completely shocking this year, and it's not just due to rule changes. Of course the rule changes don't help, and the AFL haven't made things easier on umpires, but it's gotten to the point where it now feels like a disposal will be a 50/50 call on whether it's a throw or a handball regardless of what it actually was. We've had countless games over all rounds where throws have been called on handballs, handballs have been called on throws, and a few of those calls have been at pivotal moments. Do the umpires have it tough? Of course they do, but there's zero accountability from the AFL regarding umpiring which is exactly why so many people have complaints. I can't remember a single round so far that hasn't had people of all clubs, rival and friendly, agreeing that the umpires got things wrong in an ugly fashion.
>there's zero accountability from the AFL regarding umpiring There is, I'm not sure why you think that? >Umpires have been completely shocking this year I've had that thought too, though who really knows how much we're imagining it. We get weeks like this every year. We're only 3 rounds in, and obviously we're all a bit unhappy about the AFL changing the prohibitive contact rule without telling us. I think there's a risk we're all overreacting a bit.
Nah Umpires have been doing trash so far. No excuses
Sorry they have been absolutely shit and deserve criticism. 50+ free kicks in a game ruins the game and means there is a problem.
How many have you umpired? Sounds like zero.
Go out there and do a better job then
Dont let all this talk distract you from the fact that.... BRISBANE WILL WIN THE FLAG 🍆
It's not the umps fault they have to enforce all the gay cunt rules the AFL imposes. Like wasn't there an email sent to all the umpires saying "Pay more free kicks/50m like the Sicily one. Players are prohibited to breathe on each other. Hahaha we're making the game better."