Collingwood Magpies coach Craig McRae has slammed the officiating during Friday evening's loss to the Sydney Swans.
In a topsy-turvy fixture, the Swans would ultimately emerge as three-point winners at a packed out Sydney Cricket Ground, having been well behind at points during the fourth quarter before kicking the last five goals.
Despite letting a match-winning 27-point buffer slip, McRae said a 50-metre penalty should have been awarded to Daniel McStay late in the game, while he also labelled the game 'a bit of a circus'.
"I reckon if it was at the MCG, it would have been paid. There's definitely an advantage for the home ground," McRae said during his post-match press conference.
"I thought it was a 50m penalty, to the letter of the law. I'm sure the AFL will come out and say it's a free kick or 50m penalty.
"There was a lot of deliberate (insufficient intent to keep the football in play) tonight too. That was a bit of a circus. So I'm sure they'll come out and justify that too. But the umpires don't always get it right."
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The loss leaves the Magpies sitting just outside the top eight with only weeks to play, and it's likely they will now need a strong run of form over their final games of the year against the Carlton Blues and Melbourne Demons, with both games to be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The Swans, meanwhile, were able to reverse a smashing at the hands of the Port Adelaide Power last week to restake their claim on the minor premiership, and will now face the Essendon Bombers at Marvel Stadium next week before closing their regular season at home against the Adelaide Crows on August 24.
This will remain the case for as long as the umpires have the prerogative to call “play on” or to decide that a free, while within the rules” is not “in the spirit of the game”.
Umpires routinely do not award blatant frees.
Maybe the complaint made by one of the “favoured few” will do something, obviously the outrageous umpiring in non-victorian games will not.
Of course – the umpires seem unable to position themselves (even with so many of them there).
I don’t know what it’s like in WA – but from what I’ve seen, the umpiring in SANFL seems to be far fairer, far more consistent with far less discretionary (discriminatory) “non-frees”.