You could almost hear Brian Taylor screaming his now-famous line “that was out of bounds!”, but the umpires in charge at Norwood Oval for the Gather Round match-up between Fremantle and Gold Coast weren’t having a bar of it.
As Michael Walters chased a ball over the boundary line deep in Fremantle’s forward 50 late in the first quarter, the ball bounced over the line in what would normally be called a boundary throw-in.
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However, the boundary umpire evidently either deemed the ball to have not fully crossed the line, or otherwise missed it entirely, and it paved the way for an easy centring ball into the grateful arms of Lachie Schultz, who kicked his first of the contest to put Fremantle up by 14 points.
Darcy Macpherson was the chasing Gold Coast defender, and gave up on the play entirely, evidently assuming the out-of-bounds call was patently obvious.
Mark Howard on Triple M radio commentary was incredulous.
“Darcy Macpherson has just stopped!” he exclaimed.
Commentators calling the game on Fox Footy were equally critical of Macpherson not playing to the whistle, with Alistair Lynch saying it was the “half-second” Michael Walters needed to create the space.
The internet was ablaze at the non-decision, with race driver Brenton Griguol saying “we need more umpires. That was out of bounds.”
Twitter account Americans Watching the Footy said: “I can hear BT,” in reference to Brian Taylor’s now-famous call of a contentious out-of-bounds call in 2015, where Hawthorn’s Jarryd Roughead ran the ball out and barely made an attempt to pretend to hold the ball in, with the non-decision leading to an easy goal for Liam Shiels.
“That was out of bounds, that was out of bounds, that was out of bounds,” Taylor said at the time in commentary.
It almost proved to be critical for the Dockers, who went on to win by a slender 10-point margin.
