Without downplaying the significance of two VERY soft decisions that directly lead to the Hawks first two goals, the one that changed the game was the holding the man/push in the back free kick NOT paid to Walters in the last quarter when we were 9 points down. From where I was sitting in the nose-bleed section of 309, umpire ?? was standing at right angles to the tackle on Walters with the footy well clear of the contest, about 5m away near the boundary. He had with a clear view of the infringement and apart from briefly bringing the whistle towards his mouth - he WOULDN'T pay the free kick.
I say wouldn't because the umpires understood the significance of the moment and the almost certain likelihood of Freo running over the top of the VFL's last real hope this final series - so it was play on. Then a soft free kick or two to Hawthorn on the way out and Sheridan's horrendous dropped mark lead to Rioli's goal that killed it.
That umpire, without a shadow of a doubt, will get the GF next week as his reward.
How one of the other two blind maggots couldn't see and over-rule their fellow umpires' horrendous miss only confirms the fix was on.
If that sort of free kick was missed by a junior umpire in a regular game let alone a Prelim Final, there'd be repercussions - I know, my young bloke has been junior umpiring for years. At that level, the good, fair, decisive and objective umpires get the finals - not the crap, blind ones who are only doing it for the money and couldn't make a correct decision if their life depended on it.
But somehow, by the time they get to the 'elite' level, they're rewarded with Prelim finals by having the reputation of hammering certain teams. We're the only ones that it consistently happens to because our club NEVER highlights the absolute floggings we are subject too. They need only highlight that one missed free on Walters, 15m out on a slight angle, that would have brought us within a kick. Hawthorn were spent and we were running all over them, to get within a kick and the momentum we had would have been enough to get us over the line.
As other's have said, only one team in WA gets the 'home ground' advantage from an umpiring point of view and the other gets the 'square up' to keep the VFL happy. I even heard it said recently by the umpiring department that Fremantle are a team that give away a lot of free kicks, so that's why we're on the wrong end of the free-kick count so often.
I didn't think that much of it at the time but it now makes sense. I don't think we give away a lot of free kicks - certainly not more than 20 most weeks - the thing is, we don't get them paid to us. That is the real reason they think that - because no matter how many free kicks we give away, they're conditioned not to pay them our way. Other teams, in the second half of the year - starting with the Richmond game - have been allowed to hold our midfield off the ball, do anything they like to Sandi and hold/push/charge our forwards and not be penalised. Of course, should we infringe in the most minor of manner, we're pinged and as with tonight, an away team on the ropes gets gifted their first two goals.
That was the way the AFL worked out to counter the Docker juggernaut. Throw in an unpunished dog act like Mitchell's on the best player in the comp - ruining the rest of his year, and losing Luke AA when we needed him most was enough to make us miss our first flag.
I say again to the club, this is not just a hair-brained conspiracy theory from passionate fans - it is a systematic and verifiable pattern. Everyone else in the world can see it, so what if it costs someone at the club $20,000 - I'll kick in for it.
Nothing will ever change and we will never be allowed to taste the ultimate success if action is not taken and the rubbish that was served up tonight is exposed for what it is and NEVER allowed to happen again.
