Is human error now unacceptable in umpiring our sport?

[geelong_crazy26]

Have we now gotten to a point in our great game that umpires are too frequently and unfairly subject to copious amounts of scrutiny and footage replay of their every decision??

We are now seeing silly amounts of reviews from terrified goal umpires of an error, and reviews for out of bounds calls discussed.

Have we gone too far in our pursuit of becoming perfectionists with decision making?? Is it fair on umpires the scrutiny and fear they have in making a call??

Discuss your thoughts

 

[Corn Cobbers]

I'd be happy to get rid of reviews altogether now, they are ruining the game

Good in theory but in practice it has now failed

Umps afraid to make a call and too many delays, 40 minute quarters will be the norm soon, momentum of the game is lost

Plus the tech is low quality

Maybe keep the after goal review as that doesn't cause a delay, but that's it

On SM-A225F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[sup3rfish]

My theory when the goal reviews as an example were bought in was that we should eventually go to a captains call on the review. There is enough time between the ball going through and whatever else for it to be called. And each team should be allowed a certain amount per game to eliminate time wasting and what not.

 

[ibd77]

Rather than umpires making the review calls, maybe put onus on the teams to make captains calls with a limit of 2 per quarter. Hopefully at some point the technology can be introduced to provide instantaneous decisions on goal & boundary line issues.

 

[Miluxx]

The odd mistake isn't horrible. 10 years ago we wouldn't hear much about the latest freo one.

For me its the inconsistency between umpires. So many rules to follow ie was the ball knocked out in the tackle or is it holding the ball. It's annoying watching one player get tackled straight away and make an attempt to get rid of it only to be caught holding the ball. Then watch another player drop it 3 times before disposing the ball incorrectly and it's play on.

 

[JackFlash]

Put it all down to social media, umpires don't stand a chance. The great/awful/revolutionary/regressive thing about social media in the 21st century is that everyone supposedly gets to say their piece with little to no consequences. Of course, out in the real world authorities are continually trying to find new and exciting ways to turn social media into a dystopian hellscape where your every word is carefully monitored.
As far as i can see, umpires will be forever human and they will make mistakes, but one eyed fans will always hide behind their keyboard and remind them of their dubious ancestry. AFL football is probably the hardest game in the world to officiate, it's also one of the most difficult games to play, what happened at the end of the Freo V Carlton game should never occur again.

 

[Shane Heard]

Have we now gotten to a point in our great game that umpires are too frequently and unfairly subject to copious amounts of scrutiny and footage replay of their every decision??

We are now seeing silly amounts of reviews from terrified goal umpires of an error, and reviews for out of bounds calls discussed.

Have we gone too far in our pursuit of becoming perfectionists with decision making?? Is it fair on umpires the scrutiny and fear they have in making a call??

Discuss your thoughts

Ever watched NFL refs?

There’s a whole YouTube channel devoted to the absurd, ridiculous and downright incompetence of them. With re enactments and all..

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Ever watched NFL refs?

There’s a whole YouTube channel devoted to the absurd, ridiculous and downright incompetent of them all

Nope, I haven’t

 

[Billy_01]

The fact that there is 4 field umpires now compounds this issue. If there was 2 umpires I would absolutely accept human error, but since there’s 4 there’s very little room for excuses. And too often umpires don’t make big calls because of the bystander effect in my opinion.

 

[Foucault1989]

Blaming umpires and being unable to accept mistakes is a symptom of a) an inability to handle disappointment, b) emotional developmental delay and c) avoidance of analysing your own team and holding them ultimately accountable for a multitude of events over the course of 120 minutes, where minor changes and occurrences could change the outcome of a match.

These complaints have always been around but now they are getting magnified with social media. Your team will get some umpiring luck some days and not others. Your team will perform some days, while others they are off. We focus on the number of free kicks while forgetting to actually analyse if they were reasonably. We crack it over split second decisions that we see slowed down from multiple angles. It is a bloody dynamic 360 degree game.

I can confidently say I've never left a Carlton game we've lost - and trust me there has been a few - and genuinely believe the reason why we lost, or one of the main factors, was umpires. Sure some days you feel a bit hard done by but overall you're focusing on the deficiencies of your team and how you were likely outplayed by the opposition for a multitude of reasons, including luck.

 

[Cdog71]

The fact that there is 4 field umpires now compounds this issue. If there was 2 umpires I would absolutely accept human error, but since there’s 4 there’s very little room for excuses. And too often umpires don’t make big calls because of the bystander effect in my opinion.

It’s too fast for only two field umpires, IMO.
It comes up often..”it’s the hardest game in the world to officiate”
But why is that?
The 360 aspect that players can be in the line of view??
Too many rules based on interpretation?
The umpires are too far away?

I think Ginivan is a good example…he’s obviously spent a lot of time building his ability to draw high contact, from any side or angle tackle attempt than any umpire has spent trying to identify it or recognise it.
The wet game, it was a shocker how the umpires refused to give him a free kick.

The Stand Rule.
Ridiculous

The rules keep getting softly adjusted and interpreted slightly differently from umpire to umpire.

 

[GammaScorpii]

I like getting the right decision.

BUT can someone explain to me, why, after they introduced the fact that every goal is reviewed anyway, do we still need to wait for the umpire to confirm if the soft call is a goal. Why not just call it a goal, then they can check it during the break.

 

[HairyO]

It’s too fast for only two field umpires, IMO.
It comes up often..”it’s the hardest game in the world to officiate”
But why is that?
The 360 aspect that players can be in the line of view??
Too many rules based on interpretation?
The umpires are too far away?

I think Ginivan is a good example…he’s obviously spent a lot of time building his ability to draw high contact, from any side or angle tackle attempt than any umpire has spent trying to identify it or recognise it.
The wet game, it was a shocker how the umpires refused to give him a free kick.

The Stand Rule.
Ridiculous

The rules keep getting softly adjusted and interpreted slightly differently from umpire to umpire.

Its not 4 times as fast as when we had one umpire or 2 times as fast as when we had 2.

When we had 3 they had clear zones they were responsible for but now we have 4 and Im sure half the time they dont know whether to blow their whistle or not.

 

[Vindicater]

The Freo touched ball is not an example of human error.

It is an example of four human errors.

That was what made it so bad. Not one of the four umpires was in the right position to see the deflection.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Human error is now unacceptable in general society.
With social media and everyone having an opinion, if someone makes a mistake they get absolutely crucified.
People need to lay blame.

It’s no wonder the goal umpires are checking everything. If they get it wrong everyone jumps all over them.
They are scared to make a decision.

 

[Jeremias]

Human error is a part of our game.

It always has been, and it always must be.

I appreciate the frustration of a wrong decision, but the answer is not to strive to remove human error.

Removing it completely via technology will kill our game forever.

 

[Shane Heard]

Nope, I haven’t

Their umpiring is so bad it’s not funny.

Every single week there’s a moment or 6 of refs stuffing up decisions and costing teams a potential win.

It’s almost like they bet on games themselves and rig it.

Super Bowl game no exception

 

[The Feeder Club]

As someone that knows a little bit about the error industry, in particular how serious errors occur due to the human default to heuristic thinking, I can tell you the people that have no idea what they are talking about are the many on this site that say umpire error is just random bad luck.

Unless AFL umpiring is different to literally every other industry where humans need to make multiple quick decisions to get to the right answer, the idea that all, or even most. errors are no one's fault and due to luck is incorrect.

In fact, most errors occur because the people making the decisions subconsciously incorporate cognitive biases into their decision making and their decisions are then systematically wrong, not in a random scatter plot way (which would be what error due to luck would appear) but systematically in one direction or another. Note that this is not a conscious process, but it is still biased thinking that systematically disadvantages some teams/players over others.

I would be astonished if the AFL umpiring department didn't know this. They most likely know but don't admit it publicly and/or don't care.

 

[kaiserchief13]

Human error is unacceptable in umpiring,

IF there is technology available to stop human error occurring, which there is. Look at all other sports - soccer, basketball, tennis, american football, rugby etc all using technology that is now available, compared to 50 years ago where they didn't have access to the technology

 

[GastevsBeard]

enshittification, by virtue of improving technology - AI being the latest uncorked genie that appears to be making life demonstrably worse

if we could re-cork the genie of video technology (& truly didn't know any better) - we would be much more at peace with ambiguous umpiring decisions in sport remaining ambiguous

 

[TheBlue]

It’s too fast for only two field umpires, IMO.
It comes up often..”it’s the hardest game in the world to officiate”
But why is that?
The 360 aspect that players can be in the line of view??
Too many rules based on interpretation?
The umpires are too far away?

I think Ginivan is a good example…he’s obviously spent a lot of time building his ability to draw high contact, from any side or angle tackle attempt than any umpire has spent trying to identify it or recognise it.
The wet game, it was a shocker how the umpires refused to give him a free kick.

The Stand Rule.
Ridiculous

The rules keep getting softly adjusted and interpreted slightly differently from umpire to umpire.

I think the stand rule is a great example of a rule that adds very little to the game and makes an umpire's job significantly harder. IMO, other examples which have recently been introduced are:

1. the nomination of the rucks - why is that necessary, just specify that only one player from each team can be in the ruck, if another player intervenes it's a free. Hell, bring back the third man up - who cares, it actually removes a player from the ground contest!
2. the inconsistently adjudicated rule that players should attempt to get rid of the ball when tackled - just ball it up once tackled and move the game on, this prevents the rolling mauls and players swarming the inevitable contest, minimises the adjudicative problems + plus we don't have to watch the theatrics of players pretending to try and handball the ball.
3. the odd conflict between head/body over the ball and contact below the knees (the latter introduced after the Lindsey Thomas incident) - just specify that if a player blatantly slides feet first into a player it's a free.

I think with the increase in these overly technical rules umpires' attention is increasingly drawn to irrelevant parts of the game and has encouraged the AFL to add more umpires. As other posters have already pointed out, more umpires doesn't equal a well adjudicated game and seems to actually frequently detract from good adjudication, particularly when there are FOUR of them roaming around.

 

[Fat Tony!]

The AFL have made the game harder to umpire by some of the recent rule changes. The previous hands in the back rule was much clearer. And the insufficient intent change is much more open to interpretation.

Making the rules less open to interpretation (other than holding the ball) would be the best place to start.

 

[Cdog71]

1. the nomination of the rucks - why is that necessary, just specify that only one player from each team can be in the ruck, if another player intervenes it's a free. Hell, bring back the third man up - who cares, it actually removes a player from the ground contest!

Yep.
There are so few sports, professional sports that are only played in one country. Where the rule makers aren’t made accountable for silly ideas hoping to improve the spectacle.

When I was taught to play it was called “Dropping the Ball” or “Holding the ball”.
It didn’t seem like a hard game to learn, now how can you teach kids how to play if your unsure of the rules.
Umpires allowing a players to spin more than a 360 in a tackle or hoping it might bobble out.
The want for a ball in constant movement takes away from the great skill and courage of tackling.

Below the knees contact…kids need to be taught to be lower and to be first to the ball.
When it’s wet sometimes players slip over
The thing with the stand rule, for mine is that it puts one player at a disadvantage.
Every single player can be engaged with the game apart the person on the mark who is not allowed to enter the game till he’s been given permission.
Even if the ball carrier has re-entered the game by moving off the mark he still has to wait.
It doesn’t exist in any other game in the world.
It’s absurd that a player can’t play the ball on its merits till he has been allowed verbally by the umpire.

If the ball Re-enters the game every player should be able to play it.

The premise of rules is to stop any unfair advantage or disadvantage to a player.
It’s why we have rules…the players know the rules, the umpires know them and if players don’t play within the rules the whistle is blown and the ball is given to the opposition.

It’s pathetic one player is treated differently to every other.
There’s been times where I’ve seen a player move around off the mark by at least 2 mtr without the Umpire forcing him back on his line or calling play on.

If there was hat much lee way given in soccer or cricket, people would be talking about match fixing.

Rant over

 

[Cleansweep17]

I’ll be honest I think the general public don’t know the rules properly most of the time.

I mean everytime a player gets tackled the stadium is roaring ball!!!

I just accept the umps decision and move on.

I think some of the actual rules are dumb though. Like the stand rule penalty.

 

[Retzlaff]

As someone that knows a little bit about the error industry, in particular how serious errors occur due to the human default to heuristic thinking, I can tell you the people that have no idea what they are talking about are the many on this site that say umpire error is just random bad luck.

Unless AFL umpiring is different to literally every other industry where humans need to make multiple quick decisions to get to the right answer, the idea that all, or even most. errors are no one's fault and due to luck is incorrect.

In fact, most errors occur because the people making the decisions subconsciously incorporate cognitive biases into their decision making and their decisions are then systematically wrong, not in a random scatter plot way (which would be what error due to luck would appear) but systematically in one direction or another. Note that this is not a conscious process, but it is still biased thinking that systematically disadvantages some teams/players over others.

I would be astonished if the AFL umpiring department didn't know this. They most likely know but don't admit it publicly and/or don't care.

Correct