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In Round 16 last weekend \u2013 which featured two well-publicised incorrect calls paid during the Giants-Blues clash on Saturday \u2013 only 28 umpires were required due to four teams having the bye.<\/p>\n
It comes as the AFL on Tuesday warned club chief executives it\u2019d start enforcing penalties against players or coaches who criticise umpiring calls, as well as the MRO or Tribunal system.<\/p>\n
Whateley concerned by Umpiring | 01:27<\/p>\n
Speaking on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360 on Tuesday night, Whateley suggested there was a broader issue around whether the AFL had enough whistleblowers capable of officiating nine games a weekend.<\/p>\n
But when Whateley asked whether the AFL could return to the three-umpire system \u2013 which was used between 1994 and 2022 \u2013 Chamberlain detailed why \u201creverting back to the three isn\u2019t the answer\u201d.<\/p>\n
Here is the full transcript of Whateley and Chamberlain\u2019s exchange on AFL 360.<\/p>\n
Gerard Whateley: If those within the game are now prevented from talking about the quality of umpiring, it makes the rigour externally all the more important. There\u2019s very little point having a discussion around some of what happened on the weekend \u2013 because they\u2019re just wrong, they\u2019re errors that aren\u2019t worth unpacking. Nothing happens in isolation, so I\u2019ve reached a point watching games at the moment to ask the open question: Do we actually have enough qualified, professional umpires to run the games that are in front of us? On the weekend, there were only seven games and we needed 28 umpires. On a regular weekend, we need 36. That\u2019s asking a lot of the profession. We\u2019ve already been told this is a list in rebuild \u2013 which I fully understand \u2013 and we\u2019ve been told games get graded from most important to least important \u2026 except the ninth game remains a professional game of AFL football that is worthy of a level of umpiring. It\u2019s not OK just to put the L-platers out there and go: \u2018Let\u2019s do our best and build our experience.\u2019 So it\u2019s had me thinking \u2026 I would hate to see Essendon or Richmond having to put their 36th player on the list on the field every week while they\u2019re in rebuild. With the umpiring, if we went back for two years to the three-umpire system and said: \u2018We need 27 every weekend rather than 36 and we are going to put a development program \u2013 a fast track development in progress \u2013 to swell the pool. And in 2029, we\u2019ll return to a four-umpire system because we absolutely believe it to be superior. But we will do it with more than 44 umpires \u2013 and that\u2019s on us to develop them. But for the time being, we\u2019re only going to put 27 out on the field because we are stretched too thin.\u2019 That\u2019s my contention for where we\u2019ve reached.<\/p>\n
Ray Chamberlain: There\u2019s some real validity to an array of points that you have raised. I\u2019ll try and address a couple in a certain structure. So let\u2019s talk about the idea of going back to three and use some numbers and say: \u2018The bottom 10, they\u2019re not ready yet, they need to be umpiring more state league football, we\u2019re going to put them down there, continue to coach and educate\u2019 \u2026 just be aware what you\u2019re saying is the top eight of the top 12 umpires that currently hold that list together \u2013 and have done for 20 years \u2013 they\u2019re gone, Gerard. They can\u2019t umpire a three-umpire system. It is, exponentially, physically harder than a four. It busts you. They are 50 years of age, those blokes. They can\u2019t umpire a three. So you\u2019re going to get rid of 10, (another) eight are going to fall over and they\u2019re out, you\u2019ve got to go back to the best eight that you had \u2013 that you said \u2018weren\u2019t good enough\u2019 \u2013 and bring them back in. They\u2019re going to umpire in a three-umpire system where they\u2019ve now got to make 25 per cent more free kicks \u2013 because there\u2019s not four of them out there, there\u2019s only three \u2013 they\u2019re physically in a worse position than what they are in the four, they\u2019re knackered, they\u2019re making more decisions from poorer positions that you\u2019re saying they can\u2019t make those decisions now. So reverting back to the three isn\u2019t the answer.<\/p>\n
GW: OK, so I would say to those eight (senior) umpires: \u2018Let\u2019s figure out a system here, because we value your decision-making, but we\u2019re not getting there.\u2019 I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any point pretending at the moment we have a satisfactory level of umpiring across nine games. So: \u2018Is there something we can do with you eight \u2013 you\u2019re the rold gold standard \u2013 to be able to make this work, while giving the experience to the (less experienced umpires)?\u2019 It sounds disparaging, but the L-platers shouldn\u2019t be doing AFL games. There are lots of systems in behind it to fast track development \u2013 but not in the AFL, not in the ninth game of the weekend which is still for four points in a professional league.<\/p>\n
RC: So part of that I feel comfortable enough with. I remember when I debuted in the AFL and I have a joke with Peter Bell \u2013 who was the president of the Players\u2019 Association back then and very feisty on-field \u2013 and he was quoted as saying: \u2018The standard of umpiring has never been worse.\u2019 And there was all this drama. Bryan Sheehan was retiring, Darren Goldspink was retiring, Andrew Coates, David Howlett \u2013 they were our big dogs. And some chump named (Simon) Meredith and a bloke who didn\u2019t know his way around the joint in (Matt) Stevic and some bloke with a bumpy nose named (Brett) Rosebury and a little bald-headed bloke named Chamberlain arrived \u2013 and they were \u2018going to be no good\u2019.<\/p>\n
GW: I don\u2019t quite accept that \u2026<\/p>\n
RC: That\u2019s OK. I sat quiet quietly \u2026<\/p>\n
GW: I don\u2019t think you were going to be no good.<\/p>\n
RC: What I\u2019m trying to say is that there is an element I agree with that there\u2019s some standard and education and coaching and training that needs to take place. (But) I do believe this: You can\u2019t surf the big waves if you never go out on the big waves, either. So there\u2019s a balance there.<\/p>\n
GW: That\u2019s true, but there\u2019s debutants who come into our system and play. Some of them win the Rising Star, some of them are excellent \u2013 just as some of the young umpires coming through are excellent. That\u2019s not where we are with this panel of 44 at the moment. I watch enough footy across every weekend to go: \u2018No, there are umpires here who don\u2019t meet the minimum standards at the moment.\u2019 But because we have to have 36 every weekend, you have to go out and umpire. We have a collection of 44, it has to be deeper than that. Urgently.<\/p>\n
RC: No, I agree.<\/p>\n
Dimma reveals all about umpires call | 02:39<\/p>\n
GW: What we do with teams is in the middle of the year, you get to go into a mid-season draft and we\u2019ve seen six or eight players come in and make an instant impact. They\u2019re ready to play. We aren\u2019t doing that in a way beyond our 44 (umpires).<\/p>\n
RC: I love this from you. We\u2019re at a really interesting point. I talked about elite, talent pathway, state league and community level. They\u2019ve got their own bespoke issues, but there\u2019s a theme \u2013 and it is generational. This isn\u2019t a two-year fix, mate. We are talking about education, coaching, support, challenge, joy. The game needs a serious reallocation and redistribution of resource. Not to be worrying about how much extra you\u2019re paying the umpires \u2026 you need to have high quality, the best in show people who coach, educate and mentor from community to talent to state league to elite. At the moment, there are too few of those people there. In one of the states, which is a natural heartland of Australian Rules football, they have 280 registered umpires \u2013 and two full-time coaches. Two.<\/p>\n
Garry Lyon: When you said they physically can\u2019t do it \u2013 the older umpires \u2013 that surprises me.<\/p>\n
RC: And that (Lyon\u2019s view) doesn\u2019t surprise me \u2013 and I say that respectfully.<\/p>\n
GL: And I say it respectfully. So if one was in the forward 50 and one was in the defensive 50 and that was their area and one umpired the middle, does that cut down the miles?<\/p>\n
RC: So that is not how you do it \u2026<\/p>\n
GL: I know it\u2019s not!<\/p>\n
RC: \u2026 and it\u2019s not what the game needs.<\/p>\n
GL: Are you doing some unrequired running?<\/p>\n
RC: It\u2019s been unpacked to the wazoo \u2013 and on another night, I\u2019m going to show a raft of examples of where you can\u2019t just stand 40m away from something and let it figure itself out. It demands more, but it\u2019s a fair question.<\/p>\n
GW: Parts of this we furiously agree on. This has to be a league-wide priority, a country-wide priority.<\/p>\n
RC: And I assure you \u2026 you want to go mid-season draft, but what I\u2019m suggesting to you is there isn\u2019t this surge (of talent).<\/p>\n
GW: I\u2019m just giving you the example. We\u2019ve likened the umpires\u2019 list to a club list, this is the dynamic of the club list. We don\u2019t sit still, we don\u2019t ask the 36th player to do a task he\u2019s not yet up to speed on. We fast track him and develop him \u2013 and we bring in reinforcements along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley and triple Grand Final umpire \u2018Razor\u2019 Ray Chamberlain have engaged in a spirited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-756350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}