Scott’s ‘rabbit hole’ fear for AFL umpiring
Brad Scott says there’s “too much grey” in the game to analyse every umpiring error as he defended the AFL’s decision not to publicly explain contentious decisions in Essendon’s loss to Geelong.
The Bombers coach on Monday revealed on AFL360 that he had spoken extensively to league umpiring officials who had admitted mistakes were made in the Saturday night clash.
Despite the private admissions, the AFL has declined to post a video explainer of the decisions on its website.
Interviews with football department leaders Laura Kane and Josh Mahoney explaining controversial umpiring decisions have become almost weekly, but the league said it would only use the platform for umpiring calls late in games that had a direct effect on the result.
Scott said he could understand Bombers fans’ frustration over the lack of a public explanation from the AFL but warned focusing on decisions midway through games was a slippery slope.
“(A video) is probably the simple answer (for agitated fans),” Scott said on Tuesday.
“I think you can make a bit of a rod for your own back though, in terms of is this going to be a weekly Monday morning explainer of every single decision that people want clarification on?
“I’ve said before, people generally only want the explanation they agree with, and we do deal with shades of grey in our game.
“I understand the fans’ frustration, and I think the concern for the game more broadly is that there are people who have been involved in the game all their lives who didn’t have a clear understanding of how the rules are adjudicated.
“If that’s the case, what hope is the fan who’s sitting up in the bleachers or watching at home on TV got? So the more we can be transparent and explain things, probably the better, without going down the rabbit hole of just nitpicking every single through every game.”
Scott said the Bombers felt they had a better understanding of how rules would be enforced following a “really productive couple of hours” with umpiring bosses, but reiterated he had been more disappointed with his players’ response to the frustrating decisions after they capitulated in the 45-point loss.
“I’ve said this repeatedly that our biggest concern out of the game on the weekend wasn’t the umpiring – it was our reaction to the umpiring,” he said.
“It clearly impacted our players, more than I’ve seen it before. They were quite agitated and quite frustrated, and we didn’t deal with that frustration.
“We completely understand why they were frustrated, but in elite sport things happen out of your control all the time, it’s only your reaction to that you can control.”
