CAREFUL what you wish for ...
Australian football is one of the few major sports without video review of decisions made by field umpires (as opposed to score reviews called by goal umpires).
Tennis players can challenge. Cricket has its third umpire - and rather unsettling reviews of leg before wicket calls. World football has VAR (video assistant referee).
American (NFL) football gives its coaches a red flag to challenge - leaving referees 60-90 seconds to watch a replay of their calls.
So when does the AFL follow suit, perhaps granting each team captain three challenges ... or would it be best to leave the moment with the coaches? The television directors would have yet another reason to keep the cameras on Geelong premiership coach Chris Scott.
The frustration with holding-the-ball calls - such as the non-decision in the last minutes of the Geelong-Brisbane game at Kardinia Park in late March that the AFL later ruled as wrong - and the inconsistent "deliberate" out-of-bounds free kicks this season just increases the pressure for change.
Matches should not be decided by umpiring errors, many - including players and free-speaking coaches - will say.
Technology should be used if it can help avert howlers, the chorus singers will insist.
Perhaps it is inevitable that the ARC currently used as a central review centre for scoring decisions will be expanded to take in challenges from AFL coaches on contentious umpiring decisions, both field and boundary.
But careful what you wish for ... and not just because the length of a game (already a sensitive point with coaches and players) would blow out even further.
When world football took up VAR - with the English Premier League clubs voting unanimously for the video reviews in 2019/20 - there was great expectation for less controversy and greater clarity and consistency in decision making with match-defining moments. The camera would not lie.
Instead of ending controversial calls, there is more frustration with off-side calls and greater debate on the merit of penalties.
Most of world football's most-followed analysts on social media are repeatedly pleading for VAR to be scrapped, accepting the camera does indeed tell fibs. Replays in anything but real time distort reality and lead to greater howlers than those of the officials on the field, even those caught in bad positions.
Adelaide United A-League captain Stefan Mauk sent a note of warning to Australian football last week when he spoke of VAR's influence on the world game. He said:
"When I am watching a game of football, I hate it. I don't understand the point to it. Obviously, they want more decisions to be correct from (using VAR). But a lot of it is up to the interpretation of the person sitting in the VAR - and that is going to be someone different every single time.
"When you slow something down on video, a challenge that is not so bad turns out to be really bad. A handball can look very obvious that he should not have had his hand there, but when it is played in normal speed it is a completely different thing.
"Ask every single football fan if they want it or don't want it ... they would all say no.
"I am just struggling to understand why they would want it in the game. It does not bring anything to the fans. I don't really understand why we have it."
So careful what you wish for ....
