can someone tell me why...

[stinger]

...why the saints have been crucified by the umpires all year......in every game ...

....i am sure there has been a thread on this but i was out of the country for over three weeks.......just watched the dullbogs game.......flower me......i have never witnessed more attrocious umpiring......roo was robbed of three certain kicks on goal early in the match by dogs players using illegal tactics......front on kicks to his legs, chopping of the arms...pushes in the back and whacks to the head......in the last two minutes he clearly marks the ball before copping a whack to the jaw by picken......no mark or free paid even though roo was clearly hit in the head and knocked out......what do the maggots do???....pay a mark to the dog son of a dog....you have got to be flowering kidding...but they aren't...are they...they are for flowering real...to the detriment of a fair game imhfo.......there were many other blatant errors that even the sick making commentary team ....who were rooting for the dogs.....highlighted.....

....put that together with a couple of other games...the swine game in nz for example and it is no wonder the saints players are dispirited....i know i am......


i would be of some comfort if we had a club leader with some balls who prepared to go into bat for us...seems we don't though......right??

[plugger66]

Ask Curly. He has every decision on tape.

[CURLY]

The umpires have been fine. The have been consistent with their decsions and to date.

[SaintPav]

We're only noticing the umpiring because we are so shyte.

In years we dominated like 04, 09 and even 10, the umpiring didn't even enter the frame. Desicions tend to go your way when you have control of the ball.

Different story now I'm afraid.

[stinger]

We're only noticing the umpiring because we are so shyte.

In years we dominated like 04, 09 and even 10, the umpiring didn't even enter the frame. Desicions tend to go your way when you have control of the ball.

Different story now I'm afraid.

no...i'm mentioning the umpiring in this game because my eldest son asked me to watch the match with specific regard to the umpiring which he believed cost us the match..... ......i have watched football for over 60 years and this year is the worst ..from a saints perspective ...that i can remember....


after watching the match, i would have to agree with my son, although....three posters and maister's inability to mark a dry ball didn't help

[spert]

The best team usually wins the match, and in our case, we are running second to the ball, giving away dumb frees and all the good or bad umpiring in the world won't change that. I thought we were lucky against North to get away with a few which probably should have gone against us. The umpiring is never so obvious when you are a winning team.

[kosifantutti]

The umpires didn't pay the mark to Picken.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

We've been treated poorly by the umpires for about three years now. That's not perception, it's reality. It's not paranoia, it's the truth. This year we're statistically the worst off, and it's not just because we have a few young players.

The reason? I put it down to all the negative cloud of publicity that descended upon St Kida since 2009 -- Lovett, Duthy, the reopened Milne case, Lyon's defection, even Ricky Nixon. The Saints were hung out to dry by the media and the whole team has been painted as a sacrificial lamb. To deny that such thinking has an influence on the umpire's whistle is to deny human nature.

A few years ago Dermott Brereton, who has a habit of issuing half-baked statements with the air of a mighty sage, declared that "umpiring had never been responsible for the result of a game." It was arrant nonsense but other commentators then started parroting it. The truth is that umpiring has influenced MANY results, and St Kilda in the last couple of years has suffered the worst. I can't see it getting better for a while.

[plugger66]

We've been treated poorly by the umpires for about three years now. That's not perception, it's reality. It's not paranoia, it's the truth. This year we're statistically the worst off, and it's not just because we have a few young players.

The reason? I put it down to all the negative cloud of publicity that descended upon St Kida since 2009 -- Lovett, Duthy, the reopened Milne case, Lyon's defection, even Ricky Nixon. The Saints were hung out to dry by the media and the whole team has been painted as a sacrificial lamb. To deny that such thinking has an influence on the umpire's whistle is to deny human nature.

A few years ago Dermott Brereton, who has a habit of issuing half-baked statements with the air of a mighty sage, declared that "umpiring had never been responsible for the result of a game." It was arrant nonsense but other commentators then started parroting it. The truth is that umpiring has influenced MANY results, and St Kilda in the last couple of years has suffered the worst. I can't see it getting better for a while.

You cant honestly think the umpires give us less frees or the opposition more because of bad publicity 3 years ago?

[bigred]

Grant Thomas legacy.

[GrumpyOne]

Can't honestly say that I have perceived any bias from the umpires. Been some shocking decisions, and we have been lucky on other occasions, but overall, impartiality has been evident.

[hungry for a premiership]

This argument has happened a million times at every single club and i hereby give you

THE TRUTH


It's not that the umpires deliberately pick on any one team, it's that they're part-time amateurs who work a day job during the week and umpire on weekends. This, in fact, is the reason milne was punished with a free kick that wasn't there against collingwood last year costing us a draw - because the umpires were amateurs and they got caught up in the vitriol spewing forth over the fence from the rancid filth.

The AFL likes to consider itself a world-class sport, but it will never be an elite game until it sorts out the mess it has made of the adjudication of said game. What it's done is, it's gone in there and tinkered too much, made too many rules, and over-saturated the umpires minds, when it should be giving them less to think about.

For example. the holding the ball rule. I think we'd all agree that the interpretation of this rule was far, far more advanced in the 90's than it is today. The holding the ball rule should be thus:

If the player has NO PRIOR, is tackled and the ball spills free, its PLAY ON.
If the player has NO PRIOR, is tackled and the ball is locked in, its a BALL UP - but no, the AFL have to tinker with the rules because they don't want so many stoppages, so now we see players get pinged for holding the ball on a regular basis in this situation.
If the player HAS PRIOR, is tackled and the ball spills free / is incorrectly disposed of, it's a FREE KICK for DROPPING THE BALL (By the way, HOLDING THE BALL and DROPPING THE BALL should have different umpire signals and be considered as separate rules rather than being blanketed together) - but no, again, the AFL don't like stoppages, so we see this kind of situation called PLAY ON all the time.

The AFL have absolutely no right to bastardize the game by trying to force it in certain directions. The game will evolve without the AFL's intervention, it always has, new tactics and game styles have always come about from within the game itself, and its turned into I believe the greatest ball game in the world, but the blight on the game that is the standard of umpiring is threatening to permanently stain it, forever.

FFS just pay them full time and get a group of about 20 master umpires to go on the rotation, who work full-time at the art of umpiring....

[Freebird]

Umpires historically all over the world do not cheat....home town decisions favourite players / teams etc etc is all a figment of your imagination.

Basketball/cricket/soccer etc - makes no difference if you have hometown/neutral/international umpires..honestly they're wasting their money bringing them in from afar to do what the locals can do. Who would ever think that a WA umpire would give a clutch 50/50 to westcoast if the rules interpret it correct giving it or not.

[satchmo]

The umpire pays a free kick and 50k boo. The umpire feels bad.
The umpire pays a free kick and 50k cheer. The umpire feels good.
Which do you think he will do more often?

We need huge crowds if we want a piece of that action.


* of course doesn't explain the dogs game.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

We've been treated poorly by the umpires for about three years now. That's not perception, it's reality. It's not paranoia, it's the truth. This year we're statistically the worst off, and it's not just because we have a few young players.

The reason? I put it down to all the negative cloud of publicity that descended upon St Kida since 2009 -- Lovett, Duthy, the reopened Milne case, Lyon's defection, even Ricky Nixon. The Saints were hung out to dry by the media and the whole team has been painted as a sacrificial lamb. To deny that such thinking has an influence on the umpire's whistle is to deny human nature.

A few years ago Dermott Brereton, who has a habit of issuing half-baked statements with the air of a mighty sage, declared that "umpiring had never been responsible for the result of a game." It was arrant nonsense but other commentators then started parroting it. The truth is that umpiring has influenced MANY results, and St Kilda in the last couple of years has suffered the worst. I can't see it getting better for a while.

You cant honestly think the umpires give us less frees or the opposition more because of bad publicity 3 years ago?

I'm saying that in 50/50 decisions, of which there are dozens in a game -- was that a mark? was that holding the ball? -- there will be a small but appreciable trend towards rewarding the fashionable and punishing the unfashionable. That's what fashion is -- an often inaccurate perception of reality that lingers for a long time, and has a heavy influence on impressionable minds. St Kilda is currently unfashionable and won't recover until Milne retires, a big fish comes our way, and (though I'm no Westaway-hater) we get a more outspoken president.

[gringo]

One of my tigers mates said we copped it because the umps hated our negative footy under Lyon. A melbourne mate has a theory on assumed shitness. Mine is on bookmakers buying them off.

[realdeal]

Can't honestly say that I have perceived any bias from the umpires. Been some shocking decisions, and we have been lucky on other occasions, but overall, impartiality has been evident.

J. Reiwoldt getting 4-5 shots on goal from free's for the tigers in a close one, bulldogs getting 50m penalties for no reason, the 30-40 point diff on ump decisions against the bulldogs that worked against us that game. or Nick getting belted but Petrie getting soft ones.. How about the non existent ones to Nth in the 1st to help them out (on top of us playing atrocious)

We haven't always helped ourselves but geez, we've had the rough end if the stick.

[Hurricane]

I turned the Kangaroos game off in rage when Gwilt was clearly blocked by Harvey (who had no eyes for the ball) from making a contest at the ball and Petrie marked easily 20 meters out. The commentators even remarked on it and that waste of oxygen King said it was "good play". I always thought that blocking a defender was a free kick.

There were more in that game 15 free kicks to 4 at one stage and it was 8-0 until about 8 minutes into the second quarter. Norths first 3 goals happened because of free kicks or directly because of them. It makes the game impossible to watch.

BANG BANG

[ROLS-LEE]

What about the whispers in the sky saga then that got quickly swept under the carpet

If that was not a vendetta against our club then what is.

Also, every time Bakes got suspended. That was a farce as well.

[plugger66]

One of my tigers mates said we copped it because the umps hated our negative footy under Lyon. A melbourne mate has a theory on assumed shitness. Mine is on bookmakers buying them off.

Yours is clearly the most ridiculous of the all the ridiculous comments put up on these sort of threads. Hands down.

[CURLY]

Of course umpires favour the better players and big name clubs its in their best interest to do so. Happens in all leagues.

[Beno88]

We are a distant last in free kick differential, almost double the next worst..

NM +51
WCE +39
GEEL +26
MELB +12
ESS +7
ADEL +6
GC +6
WB 0
COLL -1
PORT -4
BRIS -5
FREM -7
HAW -10
SYD -10
RICH -12
CAR -19
GWS -20
STK -37

-37 is the worst free kick differential after only 10 Rounds since champion data began.

[stinger]

The umpires didn't pay the mark to Picken.

he stood there for a couple of seconds then kicked the ball......i'd say that he thought he marked it...and the maggots didn't object.....it was either a mark or a free to roo....

[stinger]

I turned the Kangaroos game off in rage when Gwilt was clearly blocked by Harvey (who had no eyes for the ball) from making a contest at the ball and Petrie marked easily 20 meters out. The commentators even remarked on it and that waste of oxygen King said it was "good play". I always thought that blocking a defender was a free kick.

There were more in that game 15 free kicks to 4 at one stage and it was 8-0 until about 8 minutes into the second quarter. Norths first 3 goals happened because of free kicks or directly because of them. It makes the game impossible to watch.

BANG BANG

well...a blocking free kick was paid against us in the bulldogs game.....commentators also thought that was the right decision.....milne was basically infringed upon about four times in that game too for zilch free kicks......up until a few years ago i had regular contact with umpires in an affiliated league....found one or two to be okay...but there was something different about them......didn't like to be proven wrong or have someone doubt their word.....on the whole....little s***s i thought...paying the world back for not being picked in lunch time scratch matches maybe......anyway you will never convince me that we aren't being rodgered at the moment.......

[stinger]

J. Reiwoldt getting 4-5 shots on goal from free's for the tigers in a close one, bulldogs getting 50m penalties for no reason, the 30-40 point diff on ump decisions against the bulldogs that worked against us that game. or Nick getting belted but Petrie getting soft ones.. How about the non existent ones to Nth in the 1st to help them out (on top of us playing atrocious)

We haven't always helped ourselves but geez, we've had the rough end if the stick.

that's for sure.....