Morgan , the one thing that stuffs up your rationale, is that Freo had the ball and Balla's was running to lead or make space for a teammate to make a lead. Any opposition player who gets in the way of a leading player is the one doing the blocking. Ballantyne is within his rights to run wherever he wants, and the defender has the DUTY OF CARE to make sure he doesn't block the attacking player more than 5 mt off the ball. So in the laws of the game, and in the spirit of the game Stevic made the wrong decision, simply because he is incorrigibly biased against Ballantyne and Freo. The umpires coaches and advisors who have backed him on this call thefore must also be incorrigibly biased against Ballantyne and Freo.
This being shown to be the case by the decision made in this instance, and in other instances, such as but not limited to the Mumford* bump Fyfe case, the AFL is duty bound to investigate and punish the offending officials. Do they do that? NO they reward them with a grand final gig.
And by the way Morgan, the Mumford hit on Fyfe took place while a Freo player was lining up for a shot on goal, not sure if from a mark or free kick, so an immediate 50 mt penalty should have been awarded, or as I saw against Ballas a couple of years ago, another shot on goal before the ball went back to the centre.
* Edit thanks to PK for pointing out the mistaken identity, would hate to see the wrong man hung, unless it was Hodge or Mitchell.
