Footy Comment

I get annoyed watching AFL games because of the deplorable inconsistency of the umpiring, and the blatant errors umpires make.

I saw a shocker in the round 9 game between Fremantle and Geelong, first quarter I think, before I fell asleep, or maybe I woke and saw it later in the game. The footy was kicked across to a Geelong defender who was not far out from the goal Geelong were defending. It wasn't a good kick in that it was given too much air by the the kicker, giving a Freo player a chance to intercept. He ran straight at the Geelong player who was looking at the ball in flight, interfering with him in the contest and causing him to spill the mark.

An obvious free kick to Geelong, so obvious in all the five decades plus that I have followed the sport. You can't spoil a bloke going for a mark by running at him front on and into him without having eyes on the ball and attempting to mark. In any level of the game, a basic no brainer.

I can't understand how any umpire could have not payed the free kick. To make matters worse, the Geelong player went down and the Freo spoiler picked up the ball and ran in and kicked a goal. I could not believe what my eyes saw. It was so bad. No umpire could have missed that unless he wanted to for some reason or motive unknown to me.

So many people, commentators and fans, rave on about AFL being the best game in the world. I always think well, no it's not. The rules and umpiring buggers it up. It's not the greatest game in the world. I have followed it all my life and I can't make head nor tail of the umpiring. 'Push in the back', 'prior opportunity', 'pulling the ball in while on the ground', 'chopping arms', 'shepherding in the ruck', 'he ducked his head', 'deliberate out of bounds', they all seem to be payed on the whim of an umpire sometimes, and not others a few minutes apart, let alone from game to game.

I still watch, but really, I can't follow the umpiring. It's crap.

PS  AFL attendances are down, people are complaining about many things, as well as the umpiring, including the extra charges for reserved seat ticketing, and the ridiculous food and beverage prices. These things were evident many years ago and the paying public has been gouged for so long, I can't understand why there is suddenly noise about it now. It was manifest decades ago when the chairman of the AFL was also owner of Spotless Catering, the firm with the catering rights at the MCG then, and now. The rot really set in on the reserved seating with the building of the Telstradome now Etihad stadium and seems to have spread like cancer. I don't go to the footy anymore. Maybe I'll stop watching it on TV too one of these days. It's really only the night games I watch, till I fall asleep.