Why I see red

The Lions versus the All Blacks is one of the biggest matches in the world of rugby, second only to the World Cup.

Twenty-four minutes into the first half Sonny Bill Williams, the All Blacks centre shoulder charged Lions winger Anthony Watson. Contact high. impact high, red card, sent off for the rest of the game. The All Blacks played with 14 men for the remainder of the match and Williams was then banned for four weeks by the tribunal. Later Lions prop Mako Vunipola was sin binned for 10 minutes, reducing them to 14 men as well.

The point of mentioning this is to contrast the differing approach between rugby and the AFL.

OK, Tom Bugg has now been banned for six weeks but the fact remains that during the match his actions had no effect on Melbourne but disadvantaged the Swans by reducing their rotation levels. How fair is that?

When the participation of an opposition player is shortened or for the whole of the game and is the result of a foul, then the offender should be sent off, or for lesser offences put in the sin bin for a period of time and the offending team just plays one man down. History from both soccer and rugby proves that this does reduce the number of unsavoury incidents. Nothing is ever that simple of course and at the moment the availability of good quality, high definition video in AFL quite simply isn’t on offer. But in fairness this is merely a question of investment by the controlling body. For Heaven’s sake, we can’t even be definitive about whether a ball has been touched off the boot or has brushed the posts, so bad is the current AFL video. However once this investment is made we then appoint TMO’s, a television match official, who just like in rugby, will be a fully qualified referee/umpire.

While I’m at it, I also want to see a clamp down on the ridiculous pushing, shoving, slapping etc that happens at every stoppage.

Just get on with the game and penalise those that don’t.

I tend to be in the camp that believes that the game is becoming, if not unwatchable, then certainly less interesting.

The standard of umpiring is appalling, confusing and totally inconsistent.

This not only leads to frustration from the fans but also the players.

I no longer know what correct disposal of the ball is or how long is prior opportunity.

The reason AFL games appear to be difficult to umpire is because the umpires quite simply are not good enough.

In fairness it would help them if the boundary umpires were also fully qualified to umpire and took a more active participation in making decisions when the field official is blindsided.

There, I’ve had my grump and I am convinced that we must have a send off rule and better technology to help the umpires who are patently not up to standard at the moment.

In other codes the referees are respected because they do a better job and also have those yellow and red cards in their pockets.