Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson backs player agent Peter Jess’ call for full-time umpires
Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has thrown his weight behind a push to employ full-time umpires in the AFL as clubs and fans continue to display frustration and confusion over the league’s whistle blowers.
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Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has thrown his weight behind a push to employ full-time umpires in the AFL as clubs and fans continue to display frustration and confusion over the league’s whistle blowers.
Clarkson said AFL football was the “most complex game in the world” and “significant rule changes” had not helped the current levels of confusion.
However, the four-time premiership coach said he believed the introduction of full-time umpires could help and they could be used in a range of ways.
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“Everything else has gone professional in the game and it’s an area of the game that we’re probably lagging behind. So I feel like there’s a role for full-time umpires,” Clarkson said on Saturday.
“We’d need to phase it in over a significant period of time. It couldn’t be just overnight.
“I think the AFL have trialled it with some full-time in the umpiring division over the last two or three years and whether it gets to the stage where all umpires are full-time, I’m not too sure. But I’d like to see it push that way.
“People argue whether or not there’s justification for doing it, given the number of hours in the week and what would they do, but there would be plenty to do including coming out to clubs, researching vision and trying to stay ahead of what’s going on in the game, rather than being reactive to it every time.”
None of the AFL’s on-field adjudicators work on a full-time basis and footy’s longest-serving player agent Peter Jess yesterday said the AFL umpiring department was the only key area of the game yet to embrace complete professionalism.
“Clearly, there is now a need to change the model,” Jess said.
“What people were booing at the MCG after the game was the fact that the umpires missed so many blatant free-kicks.
“It wasn’t directed at Scott Pendlebury, it was directed at the officiating.
“Umpiring professionalism is critical to the growth of the game, so that slowly but surely different interpretations are limited and eventually eliminated.”
Jess said full-time whistleblowing would provide a clear talent pathway for male and female whistleblowers coming through the junior and suburban ranks.
Retired AFL umpire Derek Humphery-Smith conceded there were “some really bad non-decisions” in the Essendon-Collingwood clash, but said full-time officiating was not the answer.
“It makes no difference and would put so much pressure on their performance,” Humphery-Smith said.
“It won’t necessarily create better decision makers — (it’s better) having other aspects of your life to turn your mind to and shut off from footy.
“It’s good for the brain — and a lot of umpiring is the brain.”
Humphery-Smith insists umpiring would be improved by the formation of four-man field umpiring teams working together for extended blocks of the season.
It could also enable the game’s elite umpires to officiate in two matches a weekend, he said.
“You’ll still get errors, but I just like the idea, and it’s a model that has worked pretty successfully in the US,” he said.
“I don’t think we’ve got a problem (with the standard of umpiring), I might add, we always have these discussions after one bad day.”
AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking this week called for caution on the growing commentary around umpires.
“They do an unbelievable job … we need to change attitudes,” Hocking said.
“It’s an industry thing.
“If we want a genuine funnel of umpires coming through, I think we need to change our language.
“It’s bloody tough to get people to sign up to be an umpire.”