AFL goal umpires seem to have over-corrected following an incorrect decision on Ben Keays’ shot at goal against Sydney last season cost Adelaide dearly.AFL goal umpires seem to have over-corrected following an incorrect decision on Ben Keays’ shot at goal against Sydney last season cost Adelaide dearly.. The goal umpire talks out of the corner of his or her mouth, the field umpire paints a square in the sky, the ARC arcs up, and the guessing game begins.
If anything, the majority of goal umpires have over-corrected. They appear terrified of making a howler, and review the most bleedingly obvious of calls. They reviewed a goal at the MCG on Sunday that missed the goal post by about a metre. In the first half of the Melbourne-Bulldogs game last week, they reviewed similar incidents half a dozen times.What exacerbates the situation, and I’m looking squarely at Channel 7 here, is the way their commentators weigh in on each review.
Preliminary testing, Kane told SEN, “is quite good in terms of tracking when the ball crosses the line and if anything has happened to the ball when it crosses the line, say a slight finger or a post brush, it can pick that up. The technology is instant and tells our officials what’s happened.” We can’t even seem to get a camera fixed between the goal and behind posts. It says a lot that the best and most definitive vision of Ben Keays’ match-winning goal-turned-behind last year came from a punter in the crowd.