‘This is a little bit of a risk’: Cats coach’s lengthy take on contentious rules after close loss

Chris Scott flagged he had some “quick observations” on a couple of hot-topic AFL rules before launching into a five-minute monologue.

Chris Scott of Geelong Cats.

Chris Scott flagged he had some “quick observations” on a couple of hot-topic AFL rules.

In reality, the Geelong coach’s press conference turned into a five-minute monologue on holding the ball and advantage in the wake of a controversial late call in his side’s one-goal loss to Port Adelaide on Friday night.

Speaking to reporters post-match, Scott lamented his side’s sluggish start against the Power but said he was proud of the fightback, which saw the Cats nearly pinch an unlikely win after trailing by as much as 49 points in the second quarter.

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The Cats thought they’d reduced Port’s lead to one point late in the final term when Jeremy Cameron snuck through a major near the goalline. But the umpire called for the ball to come back to Ollie Henry as no advantage had been paid after the young Cat had been awarded a free kick – despite players from both teams playing on.

Scott was asked about the state of the holding the ball rule in the AFL.

The simple questioned led to one of Scott’s most expansive press conference answers yet.

“Just a couple of quick observations around a couple of rules,” Scott said.

Mark Blicavs (left) and Oliver Henry of the Cats. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“It’s always risky after you’ve lost a close game to do this, but I think it’s a head coach’s responsibility to defend the umpires whenever they can. And one of the best ways you can defend the umpires is, one, to point to how hard the game is umpire – and by world standards, you look at other games, it’s got to be the hardest. But then sometimes they just make bad decisions, like all of us, in the heat of the moment.

“The holding the ball one: At the moment, you’re getting a lot more time with the ball. And the biggest risk that I see, as opposed to some frustrations from the supporters and the coaches and the players, is that the players are really clear that they’ve got to be careful taking a player to ground in the tackle. At the moment, you can be spun 360 and still get time to get rid of the ball after having prior opportunity … Jake Kolodjashnij gave up a goal against Carlton two weeks ago where he’s holding onto a player – two years ago he would’ve taken him to ground but we’re telling him ‘don’t do that’ – the Carlton player just turns around and kicks a goal because Jake can’t take him down.

“So I would imagine that the umpires have been … Like the rules are there. They don’t have to change the rules. It’s kind of like, that is a whistle and a ball-up straightaway or it’s holding the ball. Some people say ‘oh, there should be no prior opportunity at all’ – that’s ridiculous in my opinion. We should protect the ball-player who’s trying to keep the game going and if he hasn’t had prior opportunity, he should get time to try to get rid of it. But if it’s clearly locked up, play a stoppage.

“Maybe there is this fear – and I think it is fear mongering – that if we have too many stoppages, the game doesn’t look as good. I just completely disagree with that – but I always have.

“And then the other one is the advantage rule. Every sport in the world that has an advantage rule, that I can think of, doesn’t blow the whistle when there’s a free kick because they want to see whether the advantage is there or not. In rugby, which is not as continuous a game as ours, sometimes the play goes on for a minute before the referee blows his whistle and then pays advantage. But we don’t have that rule. It’s one worth thinking about.

“The one tonight, the rule is if the play is continuous and the team chooses to take the advantage, then the umpire calls play on. So if we go back to the first bit – there’s four of them out there, who sometimes I think get in each other’s way a little bit, the game is so ballistic, there are so many players around the ball – maybe we should just go back to ‘this is a really, really hard game to umpire’ and you go in with your expectations that they’re going to make a hell of a lot of mistakes because there’s not much more they can do.

“I think over the years umpiring has improved and I think the young umpires coming through are contributing to a higher standard. Now whether you want four of them out there – because, again, in our game, choosing not to blow the whistle is a decision. The more you throw out there, it only takes one to blow the whistle and he overhauls the rest of them.

Tom Hawkins of the Cats looks dejected. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“So golden rule for a coach who has lost a game: Do not talk about the umpires. I’ve spent about five minutes on it. But hopefully you understand where I’m coming from.

“I’m a big advocate of people in the game contributing to the conversation – and I’m not saying on any of these issues that I’m right – but you specified holding the ball one, from a coaching perspective, the hardest part – more than the frustration of ‘why isn’t that holding the ball?’ – is to say to players ‘don’t dump them’ but then they can just turn and turn and turn. I mean, there was a couple of 360s out there tonight where I mean it’s a whistle one way or the other.

“And again, I ask the question have we got three umpires looking at each other? Because they don’t want to overrule the other one.”

Asked specifically about his frustration around the Cameron incident and whether it looked like a goal to him, Scott said: “No, but it was a goal – and that’s the point I’m trying to make.

“Again, this is a little bit of a risk … when there’s a controversial decision, the AFL come out and say ‘oh look, we made a mistake’ or ‘no, in fact, that was right’. It’s a bit offensive to the other 30 decisions that were also wrong that they refuse to tell us about.

“If you’re going to be really transparent about the controversial ones, roll it out. So at least, certainly the coaches because it’s our job, but at least the spectators can go: ‘OK, they think that one was a mistake, alright I won’t worry about that one.’ But when they say ‘no, that one was right’, then you’re confused and say ‘OK I don’t understand the rules well enough, so I’ve got to school myself up’.

“At the moment … there’s transparency around players isn’t there? The players don’t like their clanger kicks being sprawled across the newspapers – and I get it with umpires as well, I wouldn’t want it either. But if you want to provide transparency and clarity, I’m not sure that you should cherry pick just the controversial one.”

At the end of his press conference, Scott cheekily declared: “That’s as expensive as I’ll ever be.”

Originally published as ‘This is a little bit of a risk’: Cats coach’s lengthy take on contentious rules after close loss