AFL admits its umpires were overzealous in policing the protected zone in the season opener
THE AFL has admitted its umpires have been overzealous in policing the protected zone, with Richmond scorched by the stricter ruling in Thursday night’s season-opener. What was your take on the umpiring?
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THE AFL has admitted its umpires have been overzealous in policing the protected zone, with Richmond scorched by the stricter ruling in Thursday night’s season-opener.
With rival coaches left stunned by the spate of 50m penalties in the Tigers-Blues clash, the league then announced only two of five decisions were actually correct.
Richmond was hit with five 50m penalties — four of which led directly to Carlton goals — but the AFL said the decisions against Josh Caddy and Shai Bolton were wrong, while the one against Kamdyn McIntosh was described as a “marginal call”.
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An AFL memo sent to all clubs on Friday afternoon stated “all field umpires would be briefed on these particular instances prior to the rest of this weekend’s games”. The letter also highlighted the AFL’s gratitude to Richmond coach Damien Hardwick for how he reacted to the decisions in his post-match press conference.
The admission came after Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson, Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley, St Kilda coach Alan Richardson and Geelong’s Chris Scott all expressed their surprise at how fiercely the umpires enforced the rule.
“We’d been told by (umpires coach) Hayden Kennedy that was going to be a real focus, to keep the game flowing. They wanted to free up that area of the ground, but there were a couple that were probably a little bit over the top,” Richardson said.
“It was probably adjudicated a little bit tougher than it had been in JLT, so it probably took particularly the Tigers by surprise. We had a bit of a chat about it with our guys in the meeting pre-training.”
This encroachment rule is going to kill the game of AFL because of the inconsistencies. #Confused #TigersBlues
— Craig Lambert (@lambose4) March 22, 2018
Hinkley, speaking ahead of the Power’s Round 1 meeting with Fremantle, did the same.
“It did look very hot, didn’t it? We’re aware of it and we take notice and we try and make sure we don’t infringe in areas of the game that the rules say you shouldn’t,” Hinkley said.
“The AFL have been really clear during the summer through Steve Hocking that they were certainly looking to protect that area.”
Like Hinkley, Clarkson said the AFL was always going to be tight early and appeared to be curious as to whether the rule would be policed as harshly in Round 21 as Round 1.
“It always is (enforced strictly) early in the year and then it seems to taper off a little bit,” Clarkson said.
“So the real interesting part is just whether that’s maintained over the course of the season. We’re obviously mindful of that and need to educate our players a little bit, just making sure they’re wary of an infringement being incurred because it’s a significant punishment as we saw last night.”
Geelong coach Chris Scott sympathised with the umpires, but added: “One positive of playing late in Round 1 is that you get to see the other games.
“I think the competition understands why it’s in, but it’s just such a heavy penalty when effectively if it’s your forward half, generally it ends up costing the opposition a goal.
“Sometimes I think we overlook the fact the umpires are a bit nervous. Round 1 is traditionally really hot around the ball early, error-riddled and the players are exhausted towards the end. I tend to think the umpires are a bit the same.”