‘Blow the whistle’: Umps’ baffling 85-second lapse as AFL ‘fiasco’ rears head just eight days later

After the mishandling of Lachie Schultz’s concussion last Thursday night, a near-identical incident unfolded on Friday at the SCG when Aaron Francis was concussed in a marking contest, but play was allowed to continue for an inordinate amount of time.

At the 10:33 mark of the second quarter of the Swans’ 16-point win, Francis was the casualty of a heavy collision in a case of friendly fire as he inadvertently copped the right thigh of teammate Brodie Grundy.

The incident left Francis dazed, and while he didn’t immediately go to ground, he eventually went to the turf as medical staff quickly tended to him — but play continued for another 85 seconds before being stopped by the umpires at the 9:08 mark.

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“When you are under siege like the AFL, everything comes under the spotlight — so certainly the Aaron Francis incident will be one of those,” said Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph during Fox Footy’s half-time coverage.

“The big thigh of Brodie Grundy (hits him) in the back of his head. It also took the AFL umpires (almost) 95 seconds to stop play before he got off the ground.

“The AFL said in that now-infamous Friday memo after the Lachie Schultz incident: ‘The umpires are instructed to stop play as soon as they are aware there is an injured player in the vicinity (of play)’.

“So, that absolutely is up to the AFL for their interpretation of the umpires … there were options there for them (to stop play) with multiple marks to do that. I’m sure they’ll get their facts straight before they give us clarification tomorrow.”

Asked by Jonathan Brown to clarify what ‘in the vicinity’ meant in Francis’ situation, Ralph said: “(In) the initial incident, he’s a long way away from the play, but then he gets across the field … there were times when that ball was in live play — all it takes is a two-second switch, and all of a sudden, the ball’s going towards him and he’s in a position of peril.

“I think, if the AFL had their druthers, after what has just happened (with Schultz) … I think they would’ve preferred that play was stopped immediately, and then of course he gets off and play can resume.”

The Fox Footy panel revisited the incident in the post-match.

“I’ll just take you through the AFL’s rules: if an injured player is ‘in the vicinity’, the umpires should stop play,” Ralph said.

Via the on-field umpire mics, one umpire could be heard saying as Evans shot for goal: “Just Francis to your right.”

The game was stopped following a rushed behind after a Francis Evans set shot at goal.

“You would imagine that the AFL’s umpires, after that fiasco with Lachie Schultz last week, would have been told by Laura Kane to make extremely conservative decisions about stopping play if there was anyone in the vicinity.

“Francis is about 20 metres away, he’s got multiple medical staff around him … whatever your views on what happened with Schultz and whether that was really tough on the umpires, they should have taken their cue this time from that incident and stopped the game earlier.

“It feels like that we are setting the umpires up for a really impossible task to try and diagnose a lot of injuries — it is concussion (or) is it just a head knock — but it just feels like that game should’ve been stopped.”

Then the greats had their say.

Former Demons captain Garry Lyon said there ‘needed’ to be a line of communication between the umpire and a member of the medical staff dealing with the affected player.

“I would stop the game there (when play was 20 metres nearby), when you’ve got players running past to get involved in the contest, that umpire standing next to him, he (Francis) is getting walked off the ground, stop the game,” he said.

“It got stopped in the end. I have some sympathy for them at the start, because they didn’t realise it was a head knock because he was standing upright … but there has to be some message or some mechanism where the doctor can say ‘hold the game here, I’ve got a concussed player’.

“There needs to be a message to get to the controlling umpire.”

Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley put the onus on one of the four field umpires to “make an assessment” on whether or not the game needed to be stopped.

“There are four umpires. There’s one controlling umpire; there’s three other umpires. One of those three other umpires (in an ideal world) goes across, speaks to whoever it is that’s managing it … and then make an assessment on whether the game needs to be stopped,” he said.

“He (the umpire nearest to Francis) could do it. I thought it was pretty clear that Francis was trying to collect himself and was waiting for an opportunity to get off when Evans was having the shot on goal.

“That’s the time to stop it, just the same way last week Elliott’s (set shot) was the time to call time off, in my opinion.”

Lyon added: “I think we stop the game for lots of reasons. We’ve got quarters that are going out to 36 minutes — if you’ve got a head knock, stop the game.”

Four-time premiership player Jordan Lewis said these situations were “just confusing everyone”.

“For me (the) really simple way (is) to ask the doctor, or for the doctor to communicate ‘we’ve had a player that’s been concussed, can we stop the game?’ Bang, blow the whistle, stop the game,” he said.

“I don’t see the confusion. For me, that play went on for five, 10 seconds, maybe 20 seconds longer than it should’ve.”