Melbourne star Christian Petracca believes reform is needed to the AFL’s score review system after contentious calls in successive weeks.
Petracca’s shot at goal in the dying moments of Melbourne’s thriller against Carlton was sent to a score review, with the goal umpire’s soft call ‘touched’ by defender Caleb Marchbank.
The ARC ultimately found there was insufficient evidence to overturn the decision, which resulted in Melbourne awarded only a behind, with the Blues hanging on for victory.
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Scrutiny over the score review system only intensified after it wasn’t called for in the final moments of Adelaide’s loss to Sydney, despite Ben Keays kicking what should’ve been declared a goal that would’ve given his side the lead.
Delving into the incident for the first time since his shot was deemed touched, Petracca said he took his cues from the crowd.
“The crowd was going nuts so I just thought it was a goal,” he told AFL 360.
“Then we got the score review from the umpire saying he believes it was a behind, can we just confirm that through the score review.
“Trent Rivers was all over my back celebrating, I was like ‘Just calm down mate, we don’t know what the score review is’ and then Cripps and I were kind of talking about it and he said ‘I think it’s touched.’ It was frustrating on the night.
“Obviously I’m biased and felt like I kicked the goal, but it’s two weeks ago now, so there’s nothing we can do about it. It was frustrating but what can you do?”
Asked directly if he thought the ball was touched by Marchbank, Petracca replied: “No, I don’t think it was touched.”
He and fellow player Toby Greene, both appearing on AFL 360, agreed reform to the system was needed at the end of the season.
“Definitely. The AFL is a big company. I’m sure there’s some money there that we can increase the funding towards it,” Petracca said.
“Even the one on the weekend, the Adelaide one, there’s actually no goal review. There was actually no ‘Lets go and see if it was touched or was a goal.’
“Even more clarification around it. It’s actually quite funny, my fiancé doesn’t know anything about the rules and she said to me ‘When you go into a marking contest and it’s touched, they call the mark anyway, so shouldn’t that be the same as a goal?’, I said ‘That’s actually a really good point.’”
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