Umpires

[JK]

Coaches, Players, Supporters, You, Me, In Fact Everybody Have Been BITCHING About Umpiring Standards For Ever And A Day. I Have NEVER Heard Anyone Ever Say The Umpires Have Had A Good Year, EVER, So Logic Tells Me That Not To Expect Any Change In The Next Few Decades So Everyone Out There GET OVER IT and GET USED TO IT............

As long as there are LOSING teams every week, there WILL ALWAYS be BITCHING about umpires.

Well done Jackpot.

the coaches exploit all the interpretations and are more to blame than the rules committee.

Exactly. The rules are made to try and bring the game to make it unique to other sports; an exciting game at that (well that's in principle anyway) but the coaches go to great lengths to do what you have said. It's not so much the umpires' fault (two field umpires would be better mind you), nor the rules themselves, but the coaches who try to take the rules apart.

Thoroughly disagree ... Every coach in elite professional sport has always used any advantage available within the rules at that time, always has, always will ... The Rules need to be set in stone to disallow any misintentions (according to their creators).

I think the members of the committee are still living in the days when football wasn't a professional sport.

[Dissident]

The problem really, are RULES in general.

As soon as you set out in black and white, or stone, what IS ok and what is NOT ok.... there's loopholes.

[JK]

Perhaps the rules committee should consist only of ex-coaches?

[stan]

Dont tell me we are actually taking about the topic again!

[spell_check]

Coaches, Players, Supporters, You, Me, In Fact Everybody Have Been BITCHING About Umpiring Standards For Ever And A Day. I Have NEVER Heard Anyone Ever Say The Umpires Have Had A Good Year, EVER, So Logic Tells Me That Not To Expect Any Change In The Next Few Decades So Everyone Out There GET OVER IT and GET USED TO IT............

As long as there are LOSING teams every week, there WILL ALWAYS be BITCHING about umpires.

Well done Jackpot.

the coaches exploit all the interpretations and are more to blame than the rules committee.

Exactly. The rules are made to try and bring the game to make it unique to other sports; an exciting game at that (well that's in principle anyway) but the coaches go to great lengths to do what you have said. It's not so much the umpires' fault (two field umpires would be better mind you), nor the rules themselves, but the coaches who try to take the rules apart.

Thoroughly disagree ... Every coach in elite professional sport has always used any advantage available within the rules at that time, always has, always will ... The Rules need to be set in stone to disallow any misintentions (according to their creators).

I think the members of the committee are still living in the days when football wasn't a professional sport.

That's why only 5-10% of my posts are opinions.

But it's still the coaches who are to blame for the crap games week in week out.

[JK]

Coaches, Players, Supporters, You, Me, In Fact Everybody Have Been BITCHING About Umpiring Standards For Ever And A Day. I Have NEVER Heard Anyone Ever Say The Umpires Have Had A Good Year, EVER, So Logic Tells Me That Not To Expect Any Change In The Next Few Decades So Everyone Out There GET OVER IT and GET USED TO IT............

As long as there are LOSING teams every week, there WILL ALWAYS be BITCHING about umpires.

Well done Jackpot.

the coaches exploit all the interpretations and are more to blame than the rules committee.

Exactly. The rules are made to try and bring the game to make it unique to other sports; an exciting game at that (well that's in principle anyway) but the coaches go to great lengths to do what you have said. It's not so much the umpires' fault (two field umpires would be better mind you), nor the rules themselves, but the coaches who try to take the rules apart.

Thoroughly disagree ... Every coach in elite professional sport has always used any advantage available within the rules at that time, always has, always will ... The Rules need to be set in stone to disallow any misintentions (according to their creators).

I think the members of the committee are still living in the days when football wasn't a professional sport.

That's why only 5-10% of my posts are opinions.

But it's still the coaches who are to blame for the crap games week in week out.

lol .. Sorry mate.

I think it's difficult to blame the coaches, as they are just doing their job ... It's a chicken and egg situation and hard to pinpoint exactly where the blame/reason lies, but as the coaches are operating within the rules I tend to blame the latter.

[Hondo]

Put it this way, the rules committee never set down a rule which says you should put numbers back. They never wrote a rule which says you should kick it around your defensive 50 in the last 2 minutes of every quarter.

They are 2 issues which are causing grief this season and the 'blame' sits with the coaches.

I use 'blame' loosely tho - I don't mind teams doing what they want to do to win as it sets the challenge to the opposition to work a way around it.

[JK]

Put it this way, the rules committee never set down a rule which says you should put numbers back. They never wrote a rule which says you should kick it around your defensive 50 in the last 2 minutes of every quarter.

They are 2 issues which are causing grief this season and the 'blame' sits with the coaches.

I use 'blame' loosely tho - I don't mind teams doing what they want to do to win as it sets the challenge to the opposition to work a way around it.

Yes, but they also didn't lay down a rule that says you CAN'T do either of those things ... I appreciate where you're coming from and you may well be right, I'd just leave it at saying the problems exist as a result of coaching instructions and the rules under which they may operate.

The game has always been about trying to gain an advantage or mismatch, we've seen it over the generations perhaps most notably with fitness levels, to a point now where you must be considered a gifted athlete to play the sport ... As most things in the competition are now on an even footing, the coaching groups have really only one area left to try expolit to their advantage.