Crows star Scott Thompson not a favourite with AFL umpires

CROW Scott Thompson last year joked that he wasn't an umpires' favourite. Now there's evidence to back it up.

Adelaide Crows midfielder Scott Thompson gave away five frees in last weekend's Showdown. Picture: Sarah Reed.

CROW Scott Thompson last year joked that he wasn't an umpires' favourite.

Now there is cold, hard evidence to back it up.

While Thompson was referring to his hopes of winning the Brownlow Medal, when it comes to free kicks he is in a league of his own - for all the wrong reasons.

The veteran midfielder has a worse record than Buddy.

While Hawthorn's Lance Franklin is viewed as the man umpires love to hate, Thompson is bad guy No. 1 in their eyes.

Thompson, 30, has conceded more free kicks than any other player in the past three seasons.

The 142 he has given up is eight more than Franklin and 44 more than the third-ranked player - Hawks' ruckman David Hale.

Thompson's free kick differential of -56 is 13 worse than Franklin and Fremantle full back Zac Dawson, who rank second.

Thompson has been awarded 86 frees for and a whopping 142 against in his 65 games since 2011.

He is averaging more than two free kicks against a game.

His poor disciplinary record was highlighted against Port Adelaide in Showdown XXXV on Sunday when Thompson conceded five of the Crows' 13 frees against.

Several times his frustrations boiled over, particularly in the first quarter when he gave away three frees.

Thompson ranks second for most frees against this year, with 36. Only Bulldogs ruckman Will Minson (37) has conceded more.

In the past three seasons, Thompson has been pinged 44 times for high tackles, 34 for push in the backs and 26 times he has been caught holding the ball.

Adelaide football manager Phil Harper expressed surprise at Thompson's woeful free kick statistics.

"It doesn't surprise me that he's the worst at our club because he often gets penalised for over-exuberance with his tackling,'' he said.

"But it does surprise me that he's the worst in the league, which isn't good.''

Harper said Thompson had paid a small price for being "a competitive beast who loves getting in amongst it''.

"He likes to stamp his influence on the game and he likes to tackle people,'' he noted.

But Harper said Thompson clearly had issues with his tackling technique, adding the club had been working with him to improve this key part of his game.

"His tackling technique needs some refining,'' Harper said.

"He likes to tackle people but if you don't get it right unfortunately you'll give away a few free kicks.

"So it's probably an over-exuberance combined with a poor technique which we have to refine to get it right, otherwise it won't be helping the team.''

Harper said Adelaide - a notoriously poor tackling side - didn't want to curb Thompson's enthusiasm for tackling "because we're trying to get our midfield to tackle and tackle well''.

"We just need to refine his technique because he is giving away too many free kicks,'' he said.

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