A pair of contentious 50-metre penalties in the fourth quarter of Friday night’s classic between Adelaide and Hawthorn have been clarified.
And a great has implored umpires not to “make a bad decision even worse” after a player was penalised 50 metres for pointing to the scoreboard for the second time in three weeks.
First, at the nine-minute mark of the final term, Crows star Izak Rankine was awarded a mark for what replays showed was a touched kick by Alex Neal-Bullen.
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But while the Crows livewire moved off his mark multiple times — evidently unsure if it had been paid — and opponent James Sicily continued to corral, the adjudicating umpire penalised him with a 50-metre penalty.
Rankine was walked to the goalsquare and extended Adelaide’s then-six-point lead to a 12-point advantage as the stakes in the game grew.
Post-game, Rankine conceded he knew the ball had been touched on the way through but said he couldn’t hear the umpire’s whistle.
“It was touched … it was too loud; I couldn’t hear the whistle,” he told Fox Footy.
Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley asked if he was trying to draw a 50-metre penalty, to which Rankine responded: “I wasn’t at all. It was touched, and then I couldn’t hear the whistle.”
Later, Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph said on Fox Footy: “In the James Sicily situation, the umpire clearly told him ‘I had not called play on’, but clearly that ball was touched, (and) clearly Rankine had tried to play on.”
But the leveller for the Hawks was shortly after, when Jack Gunston saluted from the goalsquare after teammate Mitch Lewis appeared to have taken the advantage following a free kick.
Gunston drew a holding call on Keane, before the ball bobbled to ground and Lewis attempted to soccer it through from close range. He missed, and the umpire called play back to where Keane’s initial indiscretion had occurred.
But Keane protested with the umpire, pointed to the scoreboard and paid a big price as Gunston was walked to the goalsquare for his easiest major of the night.
“It was almost a square-up for the James Sicily situation … Gunston gets a free kick in that marking contest with Keane. As you can see, the words the AFL uses are things like ‘continuous play’, and quite clearly here, Mitch Lewis is continuous, none of the players stopped,” Ralph explained post-game.
“Now, maybe the umpire in question there is almost desperately trying to set the mark — well, that’s why you need four umpires; that’s why you need the non-officiating umpire to say ‘no, this was absolutely advantage, the Hawthorn player chose to use it’.”
But after Fremantle’s Karl Worner was penalised for pointing to the scoreboard two weeks previous, Buckley lamented umpires “making a bad decision even worse”.
“Whilst we’re at it, we need to have a look at the dissent rule. If Mark Keane points to it (the scoreboard) saying that actually was a bad decision, but then (by penalising him with a 50-metre penalty) you’re making a bad decision even worse,” he said on Fox Footy.
“That’s the second week in a row that I’ve seen a poor decision, and then dissent off a poor decision to a 50, just simply because you’ve said ‘that was a poor decision’. So, we need to clean that up as well, ‘Swanny’ (Greg Swann).
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