AFL chief Andrew Dillon has responded to Friday night’s free-kick fury after retired great Jimmy Bartel described the officiating of Collingwood’s six-point win over Footscray at the MCG as “terrible umpiring”.
The Magpies were paid 33 free kicks to Footscray’s 14 in a pulsating game decided by less than a goal.
“A great contest, terrible umpiring,” Bartel said on 3AW after the match.
Bulldogs midfielder Ed Richards said the officiating was noticeable on the field.
“I’m always one to say put the whistle away, you don’t have to get yourself involved too much if you’re an umpire,” Richards told 3AW.
“Hopefully I don’t get in trouble for saying that.”
Former Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel had a quick summary. “Terrible umpiring,” he said on Friday night.
Essendon champion and co-commentator Matthew Lloyd agreed, calling it “as bad as umpiring against a side probably that I have seen”.
“I don’t get caught up in umpiring too much but 33 to 14 Collingwood’s way … it was 6-5 early the Pies’ way and then it was just a landslide,” Lloyd said.
“They would be disappointed with that the Western Bulldogs.”
Lloyd suggested that Collingwood, Carlton or Essendon fans would not have coped with such a one-sided free-kick count.
But Dillon backed in the game’s officiators on Saturday, saying the game was overseen by an “experienced umpiring panel”.
“I’ve seen the free kick count, the [umpiring department] will review that game, and we’ll get an assessment of that on Monday,” Dillon told 3AW.
“We ask a lot of our umpires, they do an incredible job. But we want to provide the facilities, and the opportunities and the training for them to be as good as they can be.”
