Geelong coach Chris Scott gave almost six minutes worth of an answer when questioned on a pair of topical umpiring interpretations following Friday's loss to Port Adelaide.
The Cats fell six points shy of the Power at Kardinia Park, with the interstate side winning its first game at the venue in 17 years.
Geelong fought back from a lengthy deficit to get within a kick of Ken Hinkley's men, however couldn't conjure a successful turnaround to suffer their second loss of the season.
In his post-game press conference, Scott was questioned on the 'holding the ball' rule and the time afforded to players in possession of the ball when tackled.
Scott drew attention to a Round 7 incident where defender Jake Kolodjashnij had wrapped up a Carlton player but decided against 'dumping' his opponent. The tackle still allowed the Blues forward to kick a goal while being restricted, with Scott believing a whistle needed to be blown sooner.
Scott defended the match officials but said umpires may need to be quicker on blowing their whistle in similar situations.
"It's always risky after you've lost a close game to do this, but I think it's a head coach's responsibility to defend the umpires whenever they can," Scott started.
"One of the best ways you can defend the umpires is to point to how hard the game is umpire. By world standards, you look at other games, it's got to be the hardest. Then sometimes they just make bad decisions, like all of us, in the heat of the moment.
"The holding the ball one... At the moment, you're getting a lot more time with the ball, and the biggest risk that I see, as opposed to some frustrations from the supporters and the coaches and the players, is that the players are really clear that they've got to be careful taking a player to ground in the tackle.
"At the moment, you can be spun 360 and still get time to get rid of the ball after having prior opportunity.
"Jake Kolodjashnij gave up a goal against Carlton two weeks ago where he's holding onto a player. Two years ago he would've taken him to ground, but we're telling him not to do that. The Carlton player just turns around and kicks a goal because Jake can't take him down.
"The rules are there. They don't have to change the rules. [The Kolodjahnij incident] is a whistle and a ball-up straightaway or it's holding the ball. We should protect the ball-player who's trying to keep the game going and if he hasn't had prior opportunity, he should get time to try to get rid of it. But if it's clearly locked up... play a stoppage. Maybe there is this fear, or fear-mongering, that if we have too many stoppages the game doesn't look as good. I just completely disagree with that.
"So golden rule for a coach who has lost a game; Do not talk about the umpires. I've spent about five minutes on it. But hopefully you understand where I'm coming from. I'm a big advocate of people in the game contributing to the conversation. I'm not saying on any of these issues that I'm right, but from a coaching perspective, the hardest part, more than the frustration of โwhy isn't that holding the ball?', is to say to players 'don't dump them'. But then they can just turn and turn and turn. There was a couple of 360s out there tonight where it's a whistle one way or the other.
"I ask the question; have we got three umpires looking at each other because they don't want to overrule the other one?
In Friday's loss to the Power, a contentious advantage decision was made as the Cats trailed by seven points, with the officiating umpire not rewarding Geelong an advantage despite an Ollie Henry kick landing with Cats forward Jeremy Cameron in the goalquare.
The umpire decided to have Henry take the kick close to 35 metres out from goal on a difficult angle instead of having Cameron's converted shot stand.
The umpire had called advantage but brought the play back after believing it had did not benefitted Geelong.
Scott said the AFL should consider the time afforded between paying a free kick and calling back play from a potential advantage.
"Every sport in the world that has an advantage rule, that I can think of, doesn't blow the whistle when there's a free kick because they want to see whether the advantage is there or not," the Cats coach said.
"In rugby union, which is not as continuous of a game as ours, sometimes the play goes on for a minute before the referee blows his whistle and then pays the advantage. But we don't have that rule. It's one worth thinking about.
"The one tonight... the rule is: if the play is continuous and the team chooses to take the advantage, then the umpire calls play on. So if we go back to the first bit, there's four [umpires] out there, who sometimes I think get in each other's way a little bit, the game is so ballistic, there are so many players around the ball... maybe we should just go back to โthis is a really, really hard game to umpire' and you go in with your expectations that they're going to make a hell of a lot of mistakes because there's not much more they can do.
"I think over the years umpiring has improved and I think the young umpires coming through are contributing to a higher standard. Now whether you want four of them out there... because in our game, choosing not to blow the whistle is a decision. The more you throw out there, it only takes one to blow the whistle and he overhauls the rest of them."
Scott said both coaches and fans could gain from the AFL confirming right or wrong umpiring decisions outside of just the "controversial ones".
The Cats coach stressed the need for the league to "provide transparency and clarity" to its fans in a bid to ease pressure on match officials.
"This is a little bit of a risk... when there's a controversial decision, the AFL come out and say 'we made a mistake' or ' that was right'. It's a bit offensive to the other 30 decisions that were also wrong that they refuse to tell us about," Scott said.
"If you're going to be really transparent about the controversial ones, roll it out. So for the coaches, because it's our job, but at least the spectators can go 'OK, they think that one was a mistake, alright I won't worry about that one'.
"But when they say 'no that one was right', then you're confused. 'OK I don't understand the rules well enough, so I've got to school myself up'. There's transparency around players isn't there? The players don't like their clanger kicks being sprawled across the newspapers, and I get it with umpires as well. I wouldn't want it either.
"If you want to provide transparency and clarity, I'm not sure that you should cherry-pick just the controversial one."
