Matt79
Global Moderator
^^ Do you seriously believe that?
Reckon umpires/refs in sports like soccer, and certainly AFL get away with murder cf. cricket umpires - and they still get slammed heaps. What other sport is an umpire expected to stand for five days, six hours a day, making decisions on such miniscule technicalities and distances (ie. was that front foot a fraction of an inch over the line), with so little support to help them, but so detailed, and obsessive a media coverage to tear them down?
Really, cricket is probably the worst for that, in that there is always so much down time between deliveries, during breaks etc, for commentators to dwell on a decision and re-hash it at a leisurely rate for half an hour, with the benefit of slow-motion replays, super-close ups, Hawkeye, hot-spots, strike zone indicators, multiple angles etc etc, when the umpire gets to see something that takes a fraction of a second once before they're expected to make a call.
Again, as for being on a pedestal, in the AFL here, the nature of the game makes it inevitable that players will unintentionally jostle umpires occasionally, and yet they're being given massive fines every time it happens. And if a player swears at an umpire, or even vocally expresses disappointment, the umpire will give a free kick against them, or even move the free kick 50m towards the opposition goal.
This is probably an apt place to post this link of some bloke tackling a rugby league ref on the weekend just gone:
YouTube - NRL Referee Tackle
Brings to mind the famous field incursion in the Springboks-All Blacks game a few years ago
Reckon umpires/refs in sports like soccer, and certainly AFL get away with murder cf. cricket umpires - and they still get slammed heaps. What other sport is an umpire expected to stand for five days, six hours a day, making decisions on such miniscule technicalities and distances (ie. was that front foot a fraction of an inch over the line), with so little support to help them, but so detailed, and obsessive a media coverage to tear them down?
Really, cricket is probably the worst for that, in that there is always so much down time between deliveries, during breaks etc, for commentators to dwell on a decision and re-hash it at a leisurely rate for half an hour, with the benefit of slow-motion replays, super-close ups, Hawkeye, hot-spots, strike zone indicators, multiple angles etc etc, when the umpire gets to see something that takes a fraction of a second once before they're expected to make a call.
Again, as for being on a pedestal, in the AFL here, the nature of the game makes it inevitable that players will unintentionally jostle umpires occasionally, and yet they're being given massive fines every time it happens. And if a player swears at an umpire, or even vocally expresses disappointment, the umpire will give a free kick against them, or even move the free kick 50m towards the opposition goal.
This is probably an apt place to post this link of some bloke tackling a rugby league ref on the weekend just gone:
YouTube - NRL Referee Tackle
Brings to mind the famous field incursion in the Springboks-All Blacks game a few years ago