Jack Ginnivan benefited from it against Carlton on Saturday night<\/a>, with umpire Matt Stevic penalising Blue Adam Cerra for running off the mark \u2013 despite seemingly starting to call play-on when Ginnivan looked to handball to a teammate.<\/p>\nGinnivan this week told the Ball Magnets podcast the stand rule \u201csort of just ruins the game\u201d and is \u201cthe worst rule the AFL has\u201d, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s just so confusing for players and umpires to adjudicate, it just doesn\u2019t need to be this rule and create a 50m and you just can kick a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360 on Wednesday night, Swann said Stevic \u201cmade a blue and the result of that is he should\u2019ve reset the mark\u201d. But Swann said Stevic had owned his error and shouldn\u2019t be judged on it alone.<\/p>\n
Swann speaks on Stevic 50m penalty | 02:16<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard the debate around the stand rule, but he (Stevic) called it because he (Ginnivan) faked to play on \u2013 that rule has been in for five years. He just got it wrong \u2026 He\u2019s admitted it, put his hand up and said \u2018I got it wrong\u2019,\u201d Swann told AFL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I just say he\u2019s umpired 12 Grand Finals, he\u2019s a star of umpiring. He\u2019s made one blue and I don\u2019t think we should hang him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swann said, overall, the league was happy with how the stand rule was being interpreted and implemented, adding it was here to stay. He said players had adapted \u201creally well\u201d to the rule, highlighted by the fact umpires penalise players, on average, less than five times a round for infringing.<\/p>\n
But asked if the 50m penalty was the right punishment for violating the stand rule, Swann said: \u201cThat might be debatable, because it is a hard penalty.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the rule itself was brought in to allow the player with the ball to move on quickly, hit the 45s \u2026 we\u2019re happy with how that\u2019s going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it irritates a lot of people, but we\u2019re happy with the rule and there\u2019s going to be a few free kicks but \u2026 there was only six last round \u2013 it\u2019s not many.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AFL earlier this year introduced an anti-taunting rule in a bid to prohibit unsportsmanlike actions, like ruffling an opponent\u2019s head. Docker Luke Ryan and Swan Dane Rampe were both penalised for taunting in last week\u2019s Fremantle-Sydney clash, with Swann saying the league was comfortable with how they were officiated.<\/p>\n
Asked if the AFL would look at an \u201call-encompassing taunting rule\u201d or leave the rule as is, Swann said: \u201cAt the moment we\u2019ll leave it as is. The reason being is when you do touch someone\u2019s head, we didn\u2019t have to change rules or do anything. We just said it\u2019s \u2018high contact\u2019. If you pat someone on the bum, that\u2019s not a free kick normally, but if you get touched or whacked on the head that can certainly be deemed as \u2018high\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to say we do these rules because \u2018it has an effect in community footy\u2019, but it does. Taunting rubbing heads and stuff in junior footy, we just think, is an absolute no-no. They mimic what happens at the top, so we brought that in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swann: “Taunting rule here to stay” | 01:26<\/p>\n
Swann said the possibility of going back to a three-umpire system wasn\u2019t on the agenda, nor was the prospect of full-time whistleblowers. He also said the list of 44 umpires was adequate but conceded the depth can get tested if there are a few injuries.<\/p>\n
Asked if the current AFL umpire structure was adequate for the demands of the game\u2019s most professional league, Swann said: \u201cYeah I think it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is a debate around umpiring. If I sit here now and say the field umpires run at about 94 per cent accuracy, people will go \u2018I don\u2019t believe it\u2019. But even in this instance, I think the umpiring on the weekend, certainly the games on Thursday and Friday \u2013 there\u2019s this one mistake, which was a major mistake, but that\u2019s the highlight \u2013 there was no real effect by any of the umpiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to a designated facility at Windy Hill now, we start that from next week. It\u2019s got better meeting rooms, tech facilities for all the things we can do with interstate umpires and it will allow them to have more on-ground (training) because we actually control the whole ground. At Marvel we\u2019ve had issues getting on and sometimes you can only use half the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those things should hopefully allow us to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Longmire has carefully opened up on his latest meeting with a club searching for a senior coach,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-802817","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\/802817","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=802817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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