DK, the premise of your post is that free kicks cause us to be more likely to lose games. That is true to a degree. But if we’re talking causality, isn’t it equally possible that the way we play causes the number of free kicks to increase or decrease? Certain that was Roly’s view after the Derby. We were playing badly in the first quarter, and part of the way that manifested was that we gave away silly free kicks.
Think about it. Some days we kick better than others. Some days we make better decisions with the ball than others. Doesn’t it stand to reason that sometimes we approach the contest / tackle better than other days?
When you go in for a tackle, you need to consider a number of things, like whether they have the ball, their likely next movement, and who the player is (ie, are they likely to duck, fend, dispose etc). In the same way our other decisions making is sometimes off, our approach to the contest can also be off (Suban and Fyfe are shockers for this…they just goes hell-for-leather every time). Sometimes you can see we are not as ‘on’ as others. I think this affects how many frees we give away.
I’m not defending the umpires in the Derby, but I reckon they were nervous. The problem was, West Coast got the ball, and were hitting targets. All we were doing was tackling people high, and interfering in the marking contest, and the umps paid every one. To me, that was just as much a symptom of playing badly as a cause.
As for the individuals, Fyfe does give away a lot of free kicks, because he is a reckless tackler, and he keeps trying to take on 4 players when he can only take on 3 (resulting in high fends and HTBs). Suban is reckless, and while his intensity at the contest is admirable, it is more likely to result in frees. Pav suffers because he increasingly relies on strength to win marking contests. Umpires are often more likely to Pay wrestling frees to defenders, and have been for as long as I can remember.
Sandi is the interesting one. His centre square ruck style is to neutralise the opponent’s leap by getting in their path, jumping early, and hitting the ball when he lands. It maximises his chance winning the tap (he will always be taller than his opponent when they are both on the ground), but hurts his ability to direct taps (it’s hard with no momentum), and increasingly the umps are construing his action as an illegal block. To be honest, his style treads a very fine line, and although the choice of when to pay a free kick against him is seemingly arbitrary (to me, he does the same thing every time), the blocking interpretation is open to the umpires, especially when he crosses the line of the ball.
