Ray Chamberlin is a ******* ****** who agrees?

[S120]

They picked 3 pretty obvious ones where to the letter of the law they are frees or 50's but nobody will ever convince me that Mal should have been pinged for HTB. What absolute rubbish. To make it worse there was an exact replica of that tackle made by a Swan on a Docker (can't remember who, was too furious at the time) and it went unpaid. And I mean it was almost movement for movement the same tackle. Near the boundary line, Docker picks the ball up with no prior, gets tackled and supposedly has time to make a genuine attempt and doesn't get rid of it. Yet no free. Now I don't want a free given in either situation, but if one is paid against us then they have to pay it the other way. It was ridiculous.

They could have picked out the Tip Rat battling with Grundy, that would have been interesting to see what Gieschen said about it.

On a side note, I don't think I've ever heard a crowd so vitriolic towards the umpires before. When I saw the replay, it sounded nothing like it on TV. Had to be there live to feel the anger.

And for that I say well done, boys and girls. The Tip Rat Ballantyne, Chamberlain and whoever that dickhead was umpiring in no.5 all were lucky to get out of the SCG alive.

[liz]

"Chamberlain came in for particular scorn on supporter forums and social networking sites, but Gieschen said he was comfortable with the "bubbly, gregarious" umpire showing his personality, provided his umpiring maintained a high standard."

That comment from Gieschen is a bit of a worry. I am sure no-one has a problem with any umpire showing their personality off the field. But while umpires are critical to the game and certainly deserve respect, the football field is not a place for them to even have a personality. The game, from an entertainment / contest point of view is not about them. Nothing will change, however, while their boss thinks they are part of the entertainment.

[Dan]

Well, what...wow I'm speechless. That was the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard

But while umpires are critical to the game and certainly deserve respect, the football field is not a place for them to even have a personality.

Exactly I don't pay money to watch an umpire ruin a game and think they are the king of the world, I want to watch footballers play football, the game is about the players not the officials!

[i'm-uninformed2]

Read the fine print of the Geishen quote: " the vast majority were there."

Not "all were correct" or "every decision was right" but he got some wrong - except Geishen is clearly too much of a p###ant to say so in black and white language. That is, the afl is comfortable with incompetence - or worse

[SPC]

Did we really expect anything different? Not me, that's for sure.

They pick out 4 decisions that can be argued to the letter of the law and disregard a multitude of crook decisions which cannot be defended.

It was always going to be this way unfortunately, as we predicted yesterday!
- Geischen would pick out the ones he could defend and not mention all of the ones that were wrong or more importantly not paid against!
- The press would not take them on (AFL House) in any way, shape or form. Either they are on short leash from Demetriou or they are just a fan based mob with no backbone...
- Still cant believe the Grundy one on Ballantyne!! If holding someones shirt is a free when they are going at you, then they would be paying frees every 2 minutes!!!

[Dan]

As other posters have stated they picked out the easy frees. I want to know about the two Ballyntine goals, is it a free kick if you touch someone and they trip over their feet? Even the commentators were saying that the free kick shouldn't have been awarded and was very, very soft. Or is it a free if you have someone up in you face taking little swipes at you and you push them back and just skim their face? If they weren't awarded we would have won, that is a few if's though and I know that the result is all set in stone and dodgy umpiring shouldn't have been a factor if we didn't turn off in the 3rd quarter

[mcs]

"Chamberlain came in for particular scorn on supporter forums and social networking sites, but Gieschen said he was comfortable with the "bubbly, gregarious" umpire showing his personality, provided his umpiring maintained a high standard."

Guessing somebody at AFL house has been reading RWO

As much as I'm sure Razor Ray is a wonderful, bubbly and highly entertaining guy off the field, that is where his 'personality' imo should stay. The game on the field, as Liz said is not about the umpires but about the 44 blokes actually kicking and handballing the footy. As is often said, the best umpires are the ones that do their job well and stay out of the limelight and don't look to be in the limelight. Simon Taufel in Cricket is one that I often think of - an exceptional umpire who very rarely makes a mistake. Billy Bowden is also a very good umpire, but the theatre associated with him takes away from it, and sometimes I think can impact his ability to do his job correctly. Same might just go for Razor Ray.

Unsuprising comments from Gischen though- I certainly didn't expect anything different from AFL house. If you are just going to pick out a few incidents, then its easy to make it look like the umpires got everything right. As I've said earlier in the thread, its the inconsistency that infuriates me more than there being wrong decisions made (though shockers like the Grundy call are absolutely infuriating!)

[giant]

Enough. I've decided I'm going to boycott the game this week - I think we should all do it. Yes it will hurt the club in the short term but the AFL needs to be shown we can't be taken for granted.

[bodgie]

If its OK, and implicitly encouraged, for umpires to show their 'individual personalities' in such an open manner, when their required 'high standards' are somewhat questionable then its highly likely their personalities will open them up to more abuse for different reasons. This must reduce the threats of libel and shutdowns surely!

[SPC]

Enough. I've decided I'm going to boycott the game this week - I think we should all do it. Yes it will hurt the club in the short term but the AFL needs to be shown we can't be taken for granted.

Imagine the steam that would be coming out of Demetrious ears if an important game was boycotted by upset fans - be worth the protest just for that alone!

[erica]

Imagine the steam that would be coming out of Demetrious ears if an important game was boycotted by upset fans - be worth the protest just for that alone!

Doubt he would consider it important. Only one of the teams is a Melbourne team.

[longmile]

Whats the point of boycotting the game?
Thats a negative against the Swans and not the AFL and the umpires. We need everyone we can get at the game this weekend; its a very important one against the Bulldogs, to show everyone we haven't blown our wad yet.

[giant]

The point is to demonstrate that Sydney fans won't be treated like the hick country cousins. If there is a crowd of 15K this week and they know exactly why, that would scare the beejesus out of the AFL. If everyone turns up like nothing happened, then they know we were squealing like stuck pigs to no great effect.

[Big Al]

Understand where your coming from Giant but I'm not going to hurt my nephew who wouldn't understand and I'm not going to deprive the team of my support in what's an important game. Sometimes we just have to suck eggs and realise life sometimes isn't fair and just move on.

I'm already in game mode and looking forward to such things as seeing the team selected on Thursday night, wondering if the Ressies will be playing at Fox Studios Indoor bowling centre because of the weather and of course looking forward to giving the dogs some stick on Saturday.

[Nich]

Insert 'The Wiggles - Wake Up Jeff' clip here.