AFL football boss Laura Kane has said the umpires were correct in not penalising Collingwood 50 metres for encroaching over the mark in Sunday's nailbiting clash against North Melbourne.
With 41 seconds to go, Kangaroos youngster Bailey Scott marked the ball 70 metres from his own goal after an errant kick off the ground from Nick Daicos and was immediately met by Pies duo Steele Sidebottom and Beau McCreery, passing the point where the mark had been taken.
The Collingwood pair were clearly in violation of the "stand" rule and passing the point on the mark, which constitutes a 50-metre penalty and subsequent shot on goal for Scott to put the Kangaroos back in front.
Kane said that the "confusion" lies in the delayed message from the umpire, which neither told the Collingwood players to stand or call Scott to play on.
North fans will have a right to be upset after this wasn't paid a 50m penalty in the final minute.
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"It was a confusing situation and I understand why people are confused and left wanting to understand what happened," Kane toldย Footy Feed Extra.
"You can see on the vision, Bailey Scott takes the mark, the umpire blows his whistle and one of two calls could be made. It could be play on immediately, or it could be stand, which would indicate the mark had been paid.
"Neither of these two calls were made in the immediate moment after the free kick has been blown, and Bailey takes four steps or so inbound and looks to play on. So the correct call should have been play on initially.
"That has caused confusion for the players in the immediate vicinity, the Collingwood players, that there was a delay whistle-to-message and that communication was the error, I guess you could call it.
"The important part for the umpire then is to make sure he or she has control of the situation and the decision to regain control from a series of confusing incidents was to pay the mark and bring the ball back.
"The initial call, the initial mistake, was that play on wasn't called. It should have been called play on."
Unfortunately for North Melbourne and Scott, that wasn't the only contentious call they were on the wrong side of.
In the second quarter, Collingwood made a play inside their forward 50, which ended in midfielder Jack Crisp snapping for goal.
Under the new goal review system, all six-pointers are given the all clear on field but are reviewed in the AFL review centre (ARC) as the ball heads back into the middle.
As Kangaroos players threw their arms up in debate of the all clear given by the goal umpire, a review would indicate that Scott's fingers looked to be bent back after the ball left Crisp's boot.
Kane said that the ARC needs "certainty" to override a decision, otherwise, what the goal and field umpires call, would stand.
The AFL also ticked off this call. Which seemed as blatant a touched call as you would see https://t.co/4X9AL4Cduy pic.twitter.com/Sdn8E7JDAa
— Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) June 17, 2024
"We need certainty in the ARC and our score reviewers need to see and be certain that the vision shows very clearly that the ball was touched, and we didn't have that certainty," Kane said.
"It's a line ball call in the moment. Our score reviewers have to make a decision with what they have available to them, which is the vision and the images that they had. In an absence of being completely certain, they went with the umpire's call.
"We're happy with the process. I understand how you could get to either outcome, but their job is to make a decision and they've made one to back in the umpire because they didn't have definitive vision or a definitive image to make that call."
