Hi all

Long time lurking and i thought i would finally sign up today after yet another frustrating game ruined by pretty bad umpiring.

Sorry for the long posts but i need to rant.

Yes I know we were outclassed by a better team and we shouldn't blame the umps, thats a noble thing to do according to the victorians, fair enough..BUT..

Enough is enough!

I am continually getting frustrated at the way the umpiring is occurring in the AFL. Every week we seemed to be giving away frees at the wrong postion for us and the right one for the opposition team and most times it's from either a very technical and inconstant decision or from an obvious umpire error. Every week it's the same scenario which leads to a few factors. Let me try and articulate them..

The umpires always seem to set the standard of the way they will offciate against us very early in the game. If the opposing team attacks from the onset a free seems to be always given to them in front of goal, this sets a precedent in our defenders minds where they think twice about going in hard for the pill or for a defender to beat a forward..so our players tend to then slack off and we get exposed.

Usually a run of say 3 goals takes the wind out of our sails and deflates moral in the team.

Then the umpires decide they need to influence the game a bit more by paying us frees in rather non threatening positions around the ground. Usually around half back flanks. This seems to be the "levelling up period" which occurs during an AFL game and is the most frustrating aspect, because by the time the evening up occurs the game is lost or we are too far behind to mount a decent comeback and when we do we have to not only beat our opponents but also have our minds on what the umps will pay.

Sure we get some favourable frees sometimes, but by that stage we are either way ahead and won the game, so it doesn't really matter or we are on our way to a flogging. It's like the umps are taking the piss!

Now i love the code but it's leaving me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth. I didn't watch the game today due to commitments but i did mention to the partner that the umps will have a say in the way we play the game today and the swans mindset. Reading comments on a few forums how right i was! Sure the umps didn't LOSE us the game but they did influence it at the time when things were balanced.

Just like when we play Geelong at skilled or with the dogs. (It always seems to be against a vic side, today was a strange one. But the afl in their corrupt minds wants to see freo finally play some finals, not win the flag, but some finals footy..god i love AFL conspiracies its just so easy!)

Now my question, is there anyway this can be addressed at all? Or should i just suck it up and deal with it like i have been told many times by victorians? If this is the case i am giving it away, as i watch a sport or a game so it can played fairly and evenly, sure umps are humans and make mistakes but not the amount of consistent f ups we see by afl umps is baffling!

Which leads me to think about conspiracies and the one about the AFL engineering the code and results by instructing umps through their yes man geishan how to officiate a certain game each week. Every game is inconstant and rules applied to certain teams which are over looked when another game is played. I dont know what to think!

See mumford case and how vic based players were never reported for a similar incidents to back up my theory!

Sorry for the long rant but i have just had enough of umpiring in Australian Rules Football!