The facts about free kicks

[The Big Cat]

Year........................FK Differential............................... Ranking

2005................................-97...........................................16th
2006................................-87...........................................16th
2007................................-104 (Next team -57...................16th
2008................................-37...........................................12th
2009................................-16...........................................14th

[bloodboy]

Stats don't lie...but they do distort the truth! I was on the 'Umpires hate us' bandwagon a few years ago, but the style of footy we play is conducive to giving away a lot of frees. When you don't have the best list in the comp, you have to make adjustments and, unfortunately, ours have meant we gave away more free kicks...!

[giant]

That table is consistent with my perspective which is we get a much better deal from the umps these days than we used to do - the experience on the weekend was (thankfully) less typical of our treatment from the umps and even then not at the egregious end of the spectrum that we used to suffer.

[laughingnome]

Hang on a mo, if we don't have a greta team and we give away a lot of free kicks that surely = losses. No, I don't buy that's it's "the way we play". Adelaide, for example, and now St Kilda employ shutdown stoppage play without recieving the same shocking statistics we do.

[ScottH]

IIRC Hawthorn had the worst FK diff last year, They seemed to do alright, I think.

[Hartijon]

Has anyone got the stats for the GF's in 2005/2006? Thats the two games that mattered and my impression was that both were umpired fairly.In fact they were a pleasant surprise to see infringements against the Swans penalised.

[ScottH]

Has anyone got the stats for the GF's in 2005/2006? Thats the two games that mattered and my impression was that both were umpired fairly.In fact they were a pleasant surprise to see infringements against the Swans penalised.

05 - 12-13
06 - 21-20

The lower free kicks = winner.

[alison.z]

I think that the 05/06 grand finals are a huge indication of different umpiring ....

In the 2005 GF the umpires had very little impact in the game and you hardly noticed them while the 2006 GF showed a increase in the free kicks and the umpires were giving some bizarre decisions both way and were a lot more involved.

While i don't believe that either team was favoured at all in either GF, it's just an indication on the different types of umpiring.

I believe that the umpire is there to keep a check on the game and pull up anything illegal but not to do what they are doing now - they go in to every contest looking at which free kick they can give instead of letting the play go and only picking up major infringements!!!

[ShockOfHair]

You could use the same figures to argue the opposite - that the Swans are the league's worst infringers, year in year out.

[ROK Lobster]

Dirty club, Goodes the worst offender... I can see it now at BF.

What are our stats at the Tribunal? They may show that we are the amongst the worst petty offenders but rarely do anything really bad.

[johnno]

I've said what i am about to say on another thread but I will say it again here. Generally I dont have a problem with the free kicks that are paid against us in most games, generally speaking the free kicks are there. I also dont have a problem with the free kicks that are awarded to us either, most of them are there and occasionally we get a few lucky decisions here and there as most teams do, but what I do have a problem with are the(and I'm not exagerating here) 6-10 free kicks that should be awarded to us in MOST games, not all but MOST games, that aren't awarded to us. We saw a perfect example of this on the weekend against Richmond. There were at least half a dozen free kicks for us in that game that were not awarded to us, and this happens very regularly and is very frustrating.

[ScottH]

Dirty club, Goodes the worst offender... I can see it now at BF.

What are our stats at the Tribunal? They may show that we are the amongst the worst petty offenders but rarely do anything really bad.

Quite true, except for that little indescretion last year that seems to still get plenty of air time. Still the biggest hit on TV.

[connolly]

Year........................FK Differential............................... Ranking

2005................................-97...........................................16th
2006................................-87...........................................16th
2007................................-104 (Next team -57...................16th
2008................................-37...........................................12th
2009................................-16...........................................14th

Damning stats. Damning of "policy"umpiring. Umpiring interpretation is being used as a policy tool (by tools i might add) to enforce a particular style of football. This has never happened before in the history of the game. The inevitable is already occurring - disenchantment by the sporting public with a game that is being run by a bunch of arrogant Melbournecentric wide boys.

[Mr Magoo]

Damning stats. Damning of "policy"umpiring. Umpiring interpretation is being used as a policy tool (by tools i might add) to enforce a particular style of football. This has never happened before in the history of the game. The inevitable is already occurring - disenchantment by the sporting public with a game that is being run by a bunch of arrogant Melbournecentric wide boys.

What I dont understand is that a lot of these guys are form an era that had far more infringing and far more violence than today yet they keep putting more and more rules in place. Is this the situation of the kid who always got picked on in the playground getting their revenge?

Who are these people canvassing when they make rule changes for the "good of the game" - as they constantly seek to hide behind. I can tell them right now that there chances of connecting with the western sydney market are zero and so out of touch its incredible. I cant believe even the die hards in melbourne pine for a game that has no toughness about it , multiple "tiggy touchwood" rules that leave you cringing, zone based defences etc etc. People are kidding themselves if they think this is the way forward.

Looks like from the figure that we are heading towards a 2007 type differential based on already being half way to the 2008 differential after round six.

[Puppy Eyes]

Interesting that Barry Hall was out for much of last year. I wonder how the free kick differential applies to him?