The AFL was satisfied with the controlling umpire’s decision to call a ball up after he was alerted by a fellow umpire he had made an incorrect decision to award a free kick in front of goal to North Melbourne late in Thursday night’s tight match at Marvel Stadium.
Football operations boss Laura Kane admitted with the benefit of the replay the correct decision would have been to award the free kick, which was initially paid for time-wasting, to Essendon but the league is happy with the process the umpires followed and the decision to ball it up.
The umpire cancelled a free kick but didn’t reverse it.Credit: Getty Images
“The thing that was really important for us is that the wrong free kick wasn’t paid so that support umpire has really helped by coming in over the headsets that they’re all connected to,” Kane told this masthead.
She emphasised that the controlling umpire was told of his mistake by another umpire on the field, and clarified that umpires never receive direction in-play from people off the field other than the emergency umpire.
“Only the four field umpires, the goal umpires, and the emergency goal umpire on the bench who might be calling things like a blood rule or a HIA process. [There is] absolutely no communication from anybody else whilst play is live,” Kane said.
The incident had little bearing on the result – a three-point win to the Bombers – although it was confusing as umpires rarely change their decision.
Kane said a common-sense outcome was reached.
“The controlling field umpire has blown the whistle for a ball up, He thinks that he’s seen an Essendon player kick the ball away and has blown whistle again to pay a time delay free kick [then] the support umpire through the headsets, and I’ve listened to the audio, has said, ‘No, it wasn’t Essendon. It was North Melbourne,’” Kane said.
“Where a free kick is rightly being cancelled the umpires are instructed to ball it up. We can review it now and see that North Melbourne in fact kicked the ball away, and it should have been a free kick to Essendon.
“In the moment, the instruction to the umpires, unless the support umpire is very sure, which in that moment he wasn’t, the ball up is the outcome that we’re after. We’re just pleased that the free kick to North Melbourne was cancelled.”
Dons sweat on gruesome Jones injury
Harrison Jones’ foot was pointing in a direction it shouldn’t, Jordan Ridley tore a hamstring, Jade Gresham’s groin screamed at him to stop playing. And Essendon won a game of football.
In a game that should not have been in doubt after their first quarter but was absolutely in doubt right up until the last minute, the win came at a painful cost.
“It was carnage there in second half in particular,” Essendon coach Brad Scott said.
First the injuries, the worst of which was Jones just on three-quarter time when he sat cradling his lower leg over the boundary and the trainers struggled to get a stretcher to him as play continued.
Scott said Jones had a dislocated ankle and he was taken by ambulance to hospital for further X-rays in case of a break. “He’s in a fair bit of pain. His ankle’s pointing the wrong way. So that obviously doesn’t sound good,” Scott said.
Harrison Jones gets immediate treatment on the ground.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
“Ridley has a hamstring, fresh injury, unrelated to anything he’s had prior … In his 100th game, we talked about his roller coaster career. He’s been a Crighton Medallist. Clearly, we rate him extremely highly, and he’s had to overcome some adversity, and he just looked like he was starting to get a free run and gets another injury. And Gresham couldn’t come back on late with a bit of adductor tightness.”
Essendon led by 25 points at half-time, but the Roos adjusted, blocked space and dragged the game into a scrap. They then played with daring half-back to trail by a point at three-quarter time.
North lost Jackson Archer to a bad hamstring in the first half and were coming off a five-day break, but surged in the third quarter and kept winning territory in the last. The Bombers, with strong presence from Nate Caddy and Peter Wright presenting for the ball, and Sam Durham and Mason Redman trying to support of superb skipper Zach Merrett, used the ball more thoughtfully coming from defence than the Roos.
In the final minutes, first gamer Finnbar Maley, the son of former NBL player Paul, had the chance to put the Roos in front when he took a strong contested mark and had a set shot from 50 metres out. He had already kicked one goal early on – a lovely curled goal from long range – but this time he sweated over his kick so long the clock ran out. He was hurried into his kick which then fell short.
The Roos get around Finnbar Maley.Credit: Getty Images
“There were a lot of mistakes made in the game. It was not Finbar’s fault,” coach Alastair Clarkson said. “He will be disappointed. It’s just him his humility would suggest he feels like he let the team down but he has not let us down at all.
“The football world want to judge us on wins and losses but six times this year we have been in the game at three-quarter time, this time last year it was zero,” Clarkson said.
A dangerous tackle by Jaxon Prior on Cam Zurhaar will run the gauntlet with the MRO.
The Bombers need to mine their list for replacements.
“The thing that I was really pleased with tonight was the resilience and the character of the group. We obviously had some adversity in the last quarter, and coaches are always loath to individualise, but we had some individuals that just stood up in big moments, players that we just couldn’t take off the ground,” Scott said.
“It’s always a challenge. When you tell your almost 37-year-old ruckman [Todd Goldstein], he just needs to stay out there, which he’s sick of hearing from me over the journey. And he wasn’t the only one.”
