Kane Cornes questions umpiring decisions in St Kilda vs Port Adelaide game

A thrilling Saturday night encounter has copped heavy scrutiny after multiple umpiring calls were put under the microscope.

Tom Jonas pleads his case with the umpire.

St Kilda pulled off a stunning upset when they took down the ladder leaders in Port Adelaide on Saturday night at Adelaide Oval.

The dominating performance from the travelling side left the home crowd in stunned silence as they ran away to record the 12.1 (73) to 6.8 (44) victory.

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But it was throughout the game where several questionable calls from the umpires raised the eyebrows of not only fans but former players.

Former Port Adelaide premiership player Kane Cornes highlighted multiple calls that went in favour of the Saints that left Power fans pulling their hair out.

“I just pose the question: Was there an overcorrection towards the Saints (on Saturday) night from a couple of ticky touchwood free kicks that I witnessed,” Cornes told The Sunday Footy Show.

“Let’s just stay out of it a little bit, umpires, and let’s not over overcorrect, which we’ve seen a number of times this year.

“The umpires’ boss has called Brett Ratten five days ago (when) they were on the rough end of a number of decisions – and there’s six (incidents) there that you’ve seen, which weren’t free kicks. I’m trying to join the dots here and just asking the question was there an over-reaction.

“I didn’t say they went into the game with a preconceived idea. I asked the question: Was there an over-reaction from five days ago?”

"Was there an overcorrection towards the Saints last night?" @kanecornes asks whether the umpires looked after St Kilda last night because the Saints got a bad rub of the green on Monday night against Adelaide.#9AFLSFS | Watch @channel9 pic.twitter.com/eBbPH4yDr5

— Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) July 26, 2020

Port Adealide coach Ken Hinkley was left bemused following the match, but pointed the finger at the constant tweaking of the rules and their interpretations.

“I’m not an umpire basher at all, but gee, that was an interesting game,” he said.

“I will say this: The challenge with the umpiring is that it should not change from week to week. That’s confusing for everyone, for the umpires. Like the umpires walk off tonight and they got a howling and that’s not their fault most of it. The game should not get adjusted from week to week.

“The rules are the rules. They don’t need to change, we just need to umpire them consistently. Like I want my team to play consistently.

Hinkley didn’t want to harp on the umpires.

“You can’t tell me that coaches talking about the umpiring or Gill talking about the umpiring or me talking about the umpiring and trying to make an adjustment – that doesn’t work. That’s not the way the game should be.

“And for umpires to have a week to week focus, their focus shouldn’t change from Round 1 to round whatever we play, because their focus should be to umpire the rules that are written and umpire in that way and then we can be really clear as to what to expect.

“We play the game every week, we should play it with the same rules every week. I don’t know that we need to make adjustments. We shouldn’t behave like there is something that needs to be fixed every week with umpires.”

Originally published as Kane Cornes questions umpiring decisions in St Kilda vs Port Adelaide game