Holding The Ball? You Wish | Thebigtip

Remember those times when you’ve been spectating the footy, barracking for your team, and one of your players has just tackled another, who was trying to take the world on, bursting through a pack? Yelling ‘ball’ in an attempt to influence the umpire’s decision, and witnessing it work, resulting in the familiar ‘yeah’ from yourself and all the other supporters?

At this rate, we’ll have to hold on to those memories, because it’s becoming a more and more uncommon occurrence.

I was at Sunday’s Richmond v Melbourne clash, and it described my feelings perfectly. From my view of the match, it appears to me that the holding the ball rule is becoming more of a farce.

Here’s an example.

Late in the first quarter, we saw the ball entering Richmond’s forward 50. Angus Graham ran onto a wild Dustin Martin handball into space, straight into a Nathan Jones tackle, forcing him to drop the footy. Jack Riewoldt collected and handballed it forward, where Jeremy Howe collected it, and approached Nathan Foley. He made an attempt to baulk the tackle, but Foley trapped his right arm and tackled him to the ground. Howe was seen pounding the ball in a visible attempt to dispose, but was pinned for holding the ball.

This is not a suggestion that the umpires aren’t following the rule book, it’s one that they aren’t consistent.

Both players ran into a tackle with little prior opportunity, they have both taken on the tackler, and they have both incorrectly disposed of the ball.

The results? Somehow different, apparently.

And in this case, it cost the Demons a late goal, prompting booing much louder than usual from the Melbourne supporters.

Early in the second quarter, we see a decision against Richmond – one that wasn’t paid, anyway – where Jamie Bennell ran along the edge of the centre square, did a one-two with Jack Trengove nearby, took ten steps from the moment he received the footy for the second time, and was chased down and tackled by Shane Edwards. The ball spilled out and Richmond mopped it up, saving a near certain goal.

It is clear in slow motion that the ball grazed his foot, so technically it’s a kick. What is unclear is how a kick that only travelled forward due to Bennell’s sheer pace and did in no way advantage his team can be considered a legitimate, correct disposal.

It should be marked down as a kick in the match statistics but it should also be marked down as a free kick against.

A few minutes later, Sam Blease dropped a mark, gathered, ran around one Tiger and failed to do the same to a second, Brad Miller, who laid a near-perfect tackle, trapping Blease’s arms and forcing him to drop the footy.

The umpire stood ten metres away, raised his arms and called play on.

It’s easy to criticise the umpires but they get too many decisions wrong, and it’s affecting the game. There’s almost nothing worse than an extended period of time without a free kick going your way, or the double standards as with the Howe/Graham incident.

They don’t record stats on this, but the ‘BALL! ...Yeah’ to ‘Ball! ...Boooo’ ratio is increasing in favour of the latter, and it makes the game less enjoyable.

The holding the ball rule is the most commonly appealed for, and it seems to be the least paid. The umpires continuously make mistakes when it comes to the combination of prior opportunity, legal disposal and other potential free kicks.

Something needs to be done, as these things don’t fix themselves. I’m aware that it’s near impossible to introduce full-time umpires but a step towards more training, funding and development of umpires is a step in the right direction.

But for the time being, it seems as if we’ll be forced to continue booing.