Dutchy wrote:How is he blowing time off when there is no time on?
Still got a timekeeper - what's stopping him from stopping the time?
Never seen it happen, even when an ambulance is called time keeps running.
Definitely seen it happen before - It’s not a regular occurrence but its up to the umpires discretion and can’t effect the starting times of following matches if there isn’t sufficient lighting.
Can you bring a man to his feet when defeat is on repeat?
leave it as is, be too much temptation for time wasting.
Saw a side a couple years ago albeit in Juniors possibly miss out on a finals spot when a ball went out of bounds and the player that went to retrieve it kicked it under a car and feigned that he could not retrieve it, wasted over a minute and then the siren sounded may not have made any difference who knows but they are the type of things that could happen.
as i always say why change something thats not broken
I think there's merit to it, but the umpires still need to have the power to stop time if deliberate time wasting is happening. I get the volunteer aspect to it. Not everyone jumps at doing the A grade time keeping! I think 22mins in the B/C grade is adequate though
Dutchy wrote:Surely you couldn't, 1 point up with 30 seconds to play (esp with some clubs having the time on an electronic scoreboard) ball on the wing and you can boot the ball into a nearby street to kill the game.
Agree 100% Dutchy - leave it alone, too many variables to monitor correctly.
Cred to Broadview for at least raising this issue because proper timekeeping in A grade is the toughest game day job to do and the toughest to find someone willing to do it. I've done it a few times and detest it. You find yourself focussing on the umpires and the ball and don't really get to watch the game how you normally would.
In grades with flat qtrs. the rules currently allow time to stop if either timekeeper decides it should be stopped when a stretcher gets called for. This in itself is an odd rule because it says either timekeeper not both and I would have thought it should be the umpires call anyway. So if flat qtrs are implemented for A grade maybe change that rule to the discretion of the umpire for all grades.
But then you get the grounds where balls can be swallowed by trees, roads, creeks etc. and valuable time can be lost depending on whether the umpires wait until its retrieved or call for a new ball from the bench area. So does this mean a ball should be placed behind the goals for quick retrieval after the goal or behind and what if that ball hasn't yet been replaced when another score quickly occurs and the ball again goes into a difficult spot. And what if the ball has gone on the full or out of bounds and gets caught in a tree or under a car. Will benches start randomly kicking balls onto the field for a quick re-start even if the umpires haven't called for it - which will then slow things down even more due to the removal of that ball.
On the other hand, since they removed having to wait until flags are waved before bringing ball back into play after a behind and now with the quick play on out the goal square, many timekeepers would be missing the exact moment time should be stopped and re-started. Not to mention yellow cards being issued and play re-starting before the player has fully left the ground which is becoming more common. I reckon if you carefully watched the timekeep the qtrs. from the full video of a game on AdFL TV you will likely find that the timekeeping from the game would have a fair margin for error anyway.
It ultimately comes down to clubs and players being trusted to do the right thing, which in a way is not much different to now because despite the rules about both clubs supplying timekeepers it appears that most visiting clubs place trust in the home team timekeeper to do the task without someone from their club sitting next to him/her.
It’s an interesting debate that does have some merit but would need plenty of what ifs. Simple solution is one timekeeper from both clubs have to sit together before the game starts. Like no boundary ump no game start. At Edwardstown the timekeepers box is up on our balcony and so far this year no opposition timekeeper has been up there, they sit on their coaches bench. It’s 50 metres away and our timekeeper is incredibly diligent and honest but you hear opposition benches screaming if they think time is up and the siren hasn’t gone. I don’t think mandatory timekeepers sitting together would put any further stretch on club volunteers as nearly all have them anyway, it’s just where they sit.
Terrible idea for A grade football. I remember boundary umpiring a B grade game where in the last quater it was close... whenever my team was down and having a set shot, i made sure i was behind the goals waiting for the ball to go through... ready to sprint it back to the middle, once we hit the front i was always still making my way from the 50m line as the ball went through. Easily saved/wasted a couple of minites to help the team.
Do the current league boundary umps still refuse to go past any fence to collect the ball after a goal??? Close games will be decided by who gets the back quickest
Yank Man wrote:It’s an interesting debate that does have some merit but would need plenty of what ifs. Simple solution is one timekeeper from both clubs have to sit together before the game starts. Like no boundary ump no game start. At Edwardstown the timekeepers box is up on our balcony and so far this year no opposition timekeeper has been up there, they sit on their coaches bench. It’s 50 metres away and our timekeeper is incredibly diligent and honest but you hear opposition benches screaming if they think time is up and the siren hasn’t gone. I don’t think mandatory timekeepers sitting together would put any further stretch on club volunteers as nearly all have them anyway, it’s just where they sit.
