Almanac Footy: Is This A Dagger I See Before Me?
We live in anti-chaotic days. Beware the adventure. Flatten the argument. There is an all pervasive ‘safetyism’ (not my word) that governs action. Or, should I say, our inaction. We don’t want uncertainty because we see it as unnecessary. Science has killed chaos. The science is in isn’t it? So we have been advised. What else is there to discover?
AFL footy is chaos on an oval ground. With an odd-shaped ball. A glorious 360-degree game. Danger and mayhem can come from anywhere. It is a game that is at odds with the modern world; a contradiction. A blinding paradox. Blessed be.
But modern man fixes things. Organises things. Straightens things out. We cannot tolerate any wrinkles because we are smarter than that. Science tells us. Look at the emergence of AI. Now we know everything. We have the answer to everything. We can compute vast amounts of data in a nanosecond. And soon the nanosecond will be too slow. We have conquered nature. Kings of the castle.
But wait! We still have umpiring errors! This is intolerable because it introduces chance and, heaven forbid, chaos. Ignore the thousands of errors the footballers make during a game (these are not errors these are failures to execute), ignore the poor kick, the crazy handball, the dropped mark, hitting the post from 20 metres out, not laying that tackle. Ignore these things. Just focus on the umpire because the umpire can be squashed. The player failures to execute will eventually be resolved by biomechanics and psychology and science. Let AI loose on that stuff.
But herein lies the problem. The umpires can’t be fixed because they are one of us. Full of frailties and foibles and looking for certainty. But the punters, the muckers paying $450 per year for a seat on level two (under cover) at the MCG, demand that the umpires be fixed. Its not their fault. They have been preconditioned. They have been told! We human fix things, don’t we? So, fix this.
And so, the AFL makes noise and delivers announcements and talks about strategic pillars and culture and their brand. And then to make matters worse they begin to tinker. To fix it. Rather than pinging a player for holding the ball, start pinging them for holding the ball just a split second earlier. Or one of those nanosecond things, earlier. Then we can tell the punters we’ve fixed it. Even better than that, we can tell the punters we have improved the game! Brilliant! That goes to our strategic pillar around making the game better. Its all coming together.
Except it’s not.
And then the AFL gets into a complete muddle. They hold up a mirror but see the back of their head not the front. So, there is a crisis meeting (over breakfast with delicious poached eggs and a barista making the best coffee in Melbourne). And in this crisis meeting they decide that the solution to bad umpiring is to have more of them.
“We need three umpires” is the recommendation of the Kill Chaos and Imagination in AFL Football report.
“Why not four?” asks someone. Let’s spend money. Let’s throw money at the problem. Then we can talk to the punters about investing in the game and the footy spend. And let’s go on and on and on and on about respect for umpires, which is right and true, but the AFL doesn’t mean respect for umpires the AFL really means shut up and stop highlighting our balls-up. It’s a mask, a brilliant disguise. Hide in plain sight. Hide behind the billboard that says respect for umpires; huddle there and keep rolling out distractions. Anything will do. A cause. An initiative. Get photographed in an interview with a smiley face plastered on. Lean back in the office chair with the huge window behind you and the view across Yarra Park and point to crowd numbers (the poor buggers who roll up each week with a new translation book about this week’s new rule, full of diagrams and charts). And sell merchandise. Different jumpers for every thought bubble. Create noise. Distract. Nothing to see here. We’ve got this.
And so, four umpires adjudicate the game and yet chaos persists because chaos will have its way where humans make decisions. Chaos is like malaria; virtually indestructible. It is like the blackberries in the old orchard which get mowed and poisoned and hacked into the ground, and they disappear. But the following Spring the blackberry finds a way. A tiny shoot was left. They grow again. And so the outrage rises again.
Didn’t we fix this?
Make the umpires better. Simple.
But when we speak of chaos, we’re really speaking of humanity aren’t we? The human element. The only way to fix umpiring is to eliminate humanity. To get a robot to adjudicate. But I doubt the algorithm required is possible. Every week there would be a new software update. The software would eventually fail and chaos, humanity, would rise again.
Shouldn’t we embrace it? Live it. Love it. After all, if we kill the chaos we kill our game. What did CS Lewis say about the branch revolting against the tree? If it should succeed it will have destroyed itself.
No one likes the umpiring howler. No one likes running into the back of another car either. Hands up if you haven’t done that? Or tripped over in the street, or broken your best wine glass?
More from Dips O’Donnell can be read HERE.
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About Damian O'Donnell
I'm passionate about breathing. And you should always chase your passions. If I read one more thing about what defines leadership I think I'll go crazy. Go Cats.
Cracking read Dips!
It is very frustrating with the many poor and controversial umpiring decisions being made at the moment. The umpires unfortunately are killing the game IMHO! There is a clear lack of consistency from individual umpires and the game umpiring cohort that make old grey haired supporters in their 70s like myself tear our hair out (that is if we have hair!) in utter frustration and disbelief at the decisions made. If you pay a decision a particular way in the first instance then you must continue to pay that interpretation of the rule for the rest of the game. One moment it’s incorrect disposal of the ball, the next it’s holding the man.Which is the correct decision? Whatever it is the umpire must maintain that reasoning for his further adjudications. It can’t be that hard to make the correct decision, can it?
It’s Sunday 2pm. I’ve returned home to watch Port v SK on the telly. It’s not on FTA. So Kayo on the phone it is. WY did I bother. The first 20 mins was unwatchable. Player and officiating errors galore. Switched it off 5 mins into 2Q, made a cuppa and logged onto TFA and read this excellent insight on our game as it currently stands. Umpiring Australian Football has always been questioned by the masses. It’s just that now there is so much more exposure highlighting errors, and far too much interference from the powers to be that suggests that the independence of officiating is compromised. The other issue is money. There is too much of it. And more money is meant to equate to less ‘chaos’. The Irish may have it right. The GAA is still amateur as far as I can tell.
Bravo, Dips – thoughtful and wise words indeed.
Thanks for the comments. Love it.
Col I’m not blaming the umpires. They’re like the kid with his finger in the dyke. Instructed by career bureaucrats and corporate speak. I blame the direction givers who put umpires in an impossible position.
Dips, I wrote my comment in a moment of frustration after the Bombers woeful loss and some confusing umpiring decisions given last night.
You are absolutely right. It appears to me, the directions, and for that matter, the wording of the rules adopted by the league for umpires to interpret, may simply lack clarity, they are not black and white enough thus grey interpretations creep in – and this is what drives supporters nuts, inconsistent decision making!
It’s a tough job being an umpire!
This is a great debate Col. Big picture stuff. And this is easy for me to say because the Cats best player in the third quarter on Saturday night was the umpire(s). But we need to embrace the grey. Life is grey. Our footy is grey. For now. Thank goodnesses . If it ever resembles black and whites it’s done.
If we.can’t embrace the grey we should watch soccer or basketball or gridiron. One of those two dimensional, bland sports that are government and brown cardigans on a sports field.
Indeed Dips, totally agree with everything you say.
As you say, the grey area will always be there and therefore there is nothing we can do about it except to embrace it and to accept it as fact,
But to be fair on umpires, they have to make a split second decision if they believe a playing infringement has occurred. However they interpret that original infringement, then any subsequent decisions for the same infringement should be made accordingly. It is when umpires interpret that same infringement differently on those subsequent occasions that drives supporters nuts. As long as the umpires remain consistent with their decision making then supporter angst is alleviated.
Agree Col. A lot of umpires makes that harder.
Very engaging piece thanks Dips.
I have posted a link that Graeme Orr sent to me on this very theme.
On a related matter, it does not help that the alphas (past players, some commentators ) paint the umps as nerdy types who weren’t good enough to play footy. The alphas don’t necessarily do it directly. But I reckon it’s an identifiable sub-text.
Evidence for your argument about the Pavlovian reflex in footy fans. Old Mate Eagle Don on TwotRotEr last night:
“Absolutely shocking umpiring! The Hawk bias was incredibly obvious. We played awful but fair umpiring would have been nice. “WC player glanced at a Hawk player, free kick Hawthorn”
My response:
“Hawthorn had 148 more disposals; 27 more I50’s; 17 more clearances; & 3 more free kicks. What game were you at??”
The defence rests, M’Lud.
As to your general points:
– I don’t get fussed about umpiring most weeks. Interpretations change weekly but as long as they are consistently applied to both sides on the day I don’t care. Maybe 10% of games I think we (Eagles or Swan Districts) got a raw deal.
– The splinter in my eye is the plank in yours. Eagles fans screamed about a dodgy holding the ball against Yeo in the final minutes of our Kangaroos loss. A minute earlier Witherden blatantly pushed an NM forward in the back in a marking contest near goal. Play on. Luck – good and bad – mostly evens out – but we all feel entitled to good luck.
– Extra umpires hasn’t improved things due to human and physical frailties. Two was optimal for me, and the controlling umpire makes most decisions anyway – so the rest are spare pricks at the wedding. What I can see from the grandstand or TV camera perch is not what the umpire sees from the other side through a raft of bodies. Get over it.
– Unless it’s in the forward 50 – most frees are a dubious benefit anyway. They slow play down and allow defensive structures to reset. Mostly we are complaining about things of little consequence.
– My big peeve with the AFL/Legislators in all walks of life is black letter/strict responsibility rules. I hate the high tackle rule to “protect the head” which results in players ducking/diving/sinking to get a free they value more than their brain cells. Jeff Crouch and Max O’Connell 40 years ago had a feel for the game, and did not reward advantage seekers. The rule change is resulting in more high contact not less. Law of Unintended Consequences.
– I’ll go and take my tablets now.
I’m with you PB. My grief about what I saw on the PA v SK where not ‘interpretations’ but kicks going 7 – 10 metres being adjudicated as a mark. Later I saw one on the 4Q that went 17m and called not 15. A half time chat maybe? 1Q a blatant deliberate out of bounds by a SK defender not paid. Implementation of the SANFL last disposal nips that in the bud. Instances of interpretations in general play, tackling player in possession, high contact etc are nowhere near as plentiful as is suggested. Smart arsed commentators on umpiring shit me off no end. Mugs take their musings as gospel. As I infered in a previous comment, too many people earning far too much out of the game. ‘Controversial’ late decisions affecting outcomes of matches has been happening since the year dot. There is nothing new here.
Also PB, if Crouch and O’Connell were umpiring 40 years ago, the I was running around in the noughties!
Many fine points Dips.
It’s a bit hard to ignore others but I’ll focus on just one of your points. My three votes ended up going to that disingenuous billboard screaming “respect for umpires” when it is really just another AFL sledgehammer/acorn moment as they attempt to prove what a fine upstanding outfit they are upholding the inalienable virtues of motherhood, apple pie and anything else captured in that Venn diagram.
OF COURSE all sensible fans agree in trumps about the need to respect umpires but remember the heights of this ridiculous over-the-top, knee-jerk response about two years ago when players could be given a 50 metre penalty for saying nothing but for simply looking at the big screen replay of a free kick for which they had just been penalised. Thankfully, responsible parties have crab walked their way out of these excesses since but the very fact the AFL went down this virtue signalling path in the first place franks your argument.
Just on the off chance I may be misunderstood, my ire is directed squarely at the AFL, not the umpires.
RDL
Up the grey!
Get rid of the umpires.
They are killing football !!!!!
Terrific article Dips. Like everyone I don’t think the umpiring has ever been this bad. I umpired in the country and Hobart for a couple of years and as a past player I realised how difficult it can be and how important positioning is in order to make the correct decisions. The 4 x umpires works in theory but they still don’t get into the right positions much of the time. Then there’s the interpretations that you and Col pointed out. I was at the Saints v Port game and saw the Essendon v Cats and was flabbergasted at how poor the umpiring was. Maybe with 4 umpires the best are being diluted? Maybe at the start of next season the AFL needs to produce a one hour special for all the fans explaining what is and what isn’t a free kick? Something needs to be done asap. Cheers
This is an interesting discussion. Are the umpires worse? If so why? Do we ask too much of them? Are we more demanding? Are we less tolerant of certainty? Has the AFL just made a mince pie out of a peanut butter sandwich? Has the corporate desire to baffle with bullshit permeated the rule tinkerers?
I’m not sure. But I am sure that more umpires “interpreting”
each week has got stuff up written all over it. Reduce it to two then get the lawyers the hell out of it.
Less tolerant of uncertainty is what I meant to say above.
Less tolerant of uncertainty equates to too much money in my eyes Dips.
What the clubs get at the beginning of each year from the AFL would by obtainable by those from the public who are interested Ian.
I’m with you RDL. My gut tells me the umpires have hated the changes enforced on them over the past three or so years. KISS FFS!
oh nice one Dips.
Pretty loose with the word “science” there.
These stuff washes over me.
It’s all about control, by my reading of the play.
Men trying to impose control.
We know it is an essentially mad game with a significant random/ open-to-interpretation component to it.
Administrators can’t control the game, so they try to control the narrative around it, create a pissweak video review system, control the number of umpires. Control control control.
Coaches can’t control it, so they try to control press conferences. Blame/ deflect.
They control their enormous roster of staff. Try to control their players.
Fans can’t control it, so they complain.
I guess wherever there is money there is a fight for control. More money, bigger fights.
The game is mad. (Like life). Perhaps we’d all be better off embracing that.
I don’t think science is the enemy here. (science isn’t anti-chaos, btw, for any kids reading this. Science is about hypothesis-testing in controlled environments. Changing a single variable in an experiment and observing the result. Science works because every result is reproducible by anyone (anywhere) if they perform the same experiment. It is evidence-based, peer-reviewed. Unlike chiropractic therapy, or economics – which are thought bubbles.)
I think the real enemy is fragile human egos and their desire for control.