AFL to end confusion on umpire contact after Dustin Martin was let off with a fine

DUSTIN Martin’s fine for umpire contact sparked plenty of debate but the AFL is set to end the confusion with concrete guidelines in its off-season judicary review.

Dustin Martin was fined $1500 for making contact with an umpire. Picture: AAP

THE AFL will set concrete guidelines for intentional umpire contact in its off-season judicary review after confusion over a spate of player-umpire incidents.

The league’s review will also assess whether it adopts a stricter liability for players who bump after the Ryan Burton-Shaun Higgins furore.

Match review officer Michael Christian and AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking this week softened their approach to umpire contact after Dustin Martin’s contact with Jacob Mollison.

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Martin was fined $1500 after they said the tribunal had made a precedent in fining players for contact graded intentional.

There was even a discussion inside AFL House about a mid-season rule change for umpire contact.

But Hocking is against mid-season tinkering and it would have taken months to enact because it would need to be drafted then approved by the AFL Commission.

Instead Christian told media this week he would only grade umpire contact as intentional if it was aggressive, forceful, disrespectful or demonstrative.

Under the AFL’s annual review, guidelines that are currently vague over umpire contact will become much more prescriptive.

Only aggressive or confrontational contact to an umpire is likely to be seen as intentional, which will then be referred to the tribunal.

Richmond star Dustin Martin was fined for making contact with umpire Jacob Mollison. Picture: Michael Klein

But players will continue to be fined for careless umpire contact because Hocking feels it is an important message to send to all AFL competitions.

It was seen to be pointless for the MRO to continue sending players to expensive tribunal hearings when it was so obvious those players would be fined.

Geelong’s Tom Hawkins and Carlton’s Ed Curnow received one-match bans for umpire contact but Willie Rioli, Stephen May and Martin were only fined.

The AFL seems unlikely to return to strict liability provisions for head clashes as it reviews the bump rule.

Instead it could change head-high bump rules to ensure a player is liable for contact if they have an opportunity to tackle but instead bump.

The rule once enforced strict liability over all bumps and tackles but was loosened because players were penalised when they had no alternative except to bump.

Burton had the chance to tackle Higgins as he surged across the field but instead bumped him, concussing the Kangaroos star.

The MRO said they used the rules to correctly clear Burton but such a decision goes against the AFL’s crackdown on head knocks and concussion.

The AFL’s strict liability provisions were overturned when Jack Viney won an AFL appeal after he braced for contact in a collision that broke Adelaide forward Tom Lynch’s jaw.

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Originally published as AFL to end confusion on umpire contact after Dustin Martin was let off with a fine