Three-time Richmond premiership player Jack Riewoldt says the dissent rule is making players confused after the controversial rule came into full effect.
Riewoldt's comments come after GWS midfielder Stephen Coniglio gave away a free kick for what the umpire deemed him to be gesturing his arms in the air on a non-free kick call during the crucial stages of the side's 10-point loss to Carlton.
This isn't the first time the dissent rule has come up in conversation, with last year's Easter clash between Geelong and Hawthorn seeing Tom Mitchell and Jack Gunston penalised for reacting to an umpire's call.
On Monday, AFL Umpires Boss Dan Richardson released a statement on the matter.
"While players and coaches get emotional, or become overly expressive when under pressure, we also have umpires with differing levels of temperament," Richardson said.
"If there was no challenge to the decision, regardless of personal opinion on the threshold, then no free kick could or would have been paid."
Speaking last night on Fox Footy's AFL360 program, Riewoldt believes there isn't a definitive line on what constitutes dissent.
"No one has an idea because the umpires, they've admitted each umpire has got a different emotional reaction to players, so how are we to know whether we catch someone on a bad day or a good day?," Riewoldt said.
"There's moments after that dissent free kick where players are doing the exact same thing and we don't get the same result. So I'm scratching my head.
"I would've said way worse and done more demonstrative stuff to senior umpires and just had a normal conversation or just asked a question, which you do sometimes - there's four umpires, one is genuinely around the centre of the ground or with the forwards - (asking) 'Why is that a free kick?'
"That's a bit of a natural reaction, but that could be deemed as dissent, which is the Coniglio example here. I'm still scratching my head about it and I think most of the footy public are as well."
Carlton veteran Sam Doherty who was part of the game, admits he had no idea that the free was paid.
"I had no idea. I had to ask the umpire was and he said 'Dissent'... I assumed that it was he swore at him or something, that's my initial reaction. Having seen it after, it does happen a lot in games," he said.
"I had presser yesterday and my response to it all is it's going to be hard with human error in our game. I think there's always going to be a sense of grey in our game and we do have to accept that's part of it and umpires are humans, they're going to make mistakes just like we as players make mistakes."
In April last year, former League Umpire Boss, now Essendon Coach Brad Scott, said "all clubs are crystal clear" on what defines dissent.
