WRONG!

Patrick Smith makes his living from being controversial, so he'll be able to afford a few extra sugary treats this week. Why? Because he's penned an article totally at odds with every footy pundit in the land.

He's taken the position that Alistair Nicholson got his right whack for pushing Matthew Lloyd on Saturday afternoon....

The bloke in the yellow shirt and running around with a whistle is called an umpire. Best if you do as he says.

And that the commentators were numbskulls for missing the point of the free kick....

Former Collingwood champ Peter Daicos was commentating and may well have had a seizure. Sitting next to him was Michael Christian, who also appeared to become most unwell. Both men wailed and wept about the match being ruined by Baldwin's decision. All of it nonsense, of course.

And the Melbourne coach is cute....

It drew the great philosopher and Melbourne coach Neale Daniher to note: "It's like pinching a packet of chewing gum from the corner store and going to the gallows." Cute observation but it misses the point.

The article is based on Patrick's assertion that the umpire gave the players due warning that if they started any trouble there would be a penalty.

But who's being cute Patrick? Because let's face it. You're wrong. There is no way umpire Baldwin gave either Nicholson or Lloyd a warning BEFORE they entered into their little fracas.

Therefore if you accept the umpire was late with his warning then he must have paid the free because he thought the contact was illegal. And if that's the case then there has to be many, many more free kicks paid in every game. And that's the point of all the other pundits. The kick was soft. In fact, very soft. Or as one of the five text messages I got within five minutes of it happening read; "WORST free kick ever!"

There's also the question - would the umpire have paid the kick if Lloyd hadn't fallen over? Well, his acting was accused of being outside the spirit of the game, but there are many bigger con jobs throughout a season. And anyway, acting for frees is a part of the game and until it's outlawed it's up to the umpires to recognise it for what it is. Baldwin didn't and subsequently paid an appalling free kick.

And we ought not ignore the fact that even if the umpire DID warn the players in time, it was STILL a pissant decision wherein a reasonable umpire would have agreed there was absolutely nothing in what happened!

So what did happen? My summation is as follows. Rioli kicks the goal. Lloyd mouths off to Nicholson. Nicholson grabs Lloyd's jumper. Ruffles it once. Ruffles it again. The second time near the neck. Lloyd does Louganis. As Nicholson's doing the second shove Baldwin pipes up with a warning. In a cross-pollination of too high (debatable), a warning (late) and seeing Lloyd falling down (getting conned) he over-reacts and  pays the free.

I don't for a minute accept the excuse from the umpiring department that a warning was given. And if you take the warning out of the equation then it's an shocker on all levels.

Unfortunately Patrick also entered into a bout of sleazy semantics....

Once the commentator regained his composure he said the decision was poor when you consider "the context of the game". Whatever does that mean?

C'mon Paddy boy. Now you're starting to pad the article. You know very well the commentator means the free was soft compared to the many other soft frees let go. Except coincidentally, the one paid to Lloyd about five minutes earlier. So don't play word games to mount your case. The term "context of the game" is as readily recognisable a clich� as is "stepping up" or "taking it one week at a time".

As a concession to Smith, I am prepared to accept that Nicholson shouldn't have given the umpire a chance to blow for a free. But given the nature of the contact we'd soon be playing netball if all of those were paid.

Complicating matters is the suggestion that it settled the game. I disagree. I think that given the conditions, Rioli's goal sealed the game and that the free to Lloyd and subsequent goal was superfluous to the result. Not so his earlier soft free which put Essington back in front. But that's another story.

However, it does mean Umpire Baldwin needs to take a good hard look at himself. And consider buying a map to the country grounds. Because even though he's getting backed by The Geish, and obviously can't be demoted without admitting fault, he's bound to be on notice that another howler like that one and he'll have to learn to spell, and then find, Manangaplah Kookardiniyah United. I know I can't.

And finally, I hope Lloyd doesn't expect to receive too many frees over the next few weeks.

PS: The fact Patrick Smith barracks for Essington has nothing at all to do with this post. Nothing. He's a thoroughly professional contrarian. But I just felt I'd mention Smith and Essendon. For no reason.

Comments

[Os]

agree, Patrick is a prat and he's pushing the envelope to absurd lengths to justify what was a bad bad bad decision. The umpire must be aspiring to a close friendship of an atypical kind with pretty Matty.
I do think it killed the game, the Dees were still in it, it's not impossible to kick two goals in two minutes, but the order of difficulty of kicking three rises exponentially. The Dees realised this and the game ended in a whimper.

[Big Ramifications]

I like to watch.