Throw It Up, Say Coaches, Sick Of The Bounce

The Age

Monday April 21, 2008

Adrian Lowe with AAP

FALL-OUT from the wayward centre bounce at a crucial stage of Saturday night's clash between North Melbourne and Collingwood continued yesterday with Richmond coach Terry Wallace and former AFL umpire Derek Humphery-Smith saying the ball should have been recalled and thrown up.

After a Shannon Grant goal, field umpire Damien Sully's bounce went at an angle well towards the Kangaroos' scoring end and after captain Adam Simpson kicked it inside the 50-metre area, rookie Ed Lower snap-kicked a goal, putting North Melbourne in front by eight points.

Wallace said he was in favour of the bounce being retained to start each quarter, but then the ball should be thrown up.

"In the situation of last night, there should at least be a call-back," he told Triple M, saying that if there was such a call-back, the ball should be thrown the second time.

"You shouldn't have circumstances and situations that are that ridiculous in a game of footy. Throw it up and let us play it in an even playing field."

Humphery-Smith, who was dropped to VFL umpiring in 2003 after a bad bounce, said that when he saw Saturday night's incident, he had a feeling in his gut "that most umpires have had at some stage in their careers".

"I think I'd certainly like to see in that situation that the umpires have the ability to blow time-on (and) bring it back - and in that situation throw it up immediately," he said."You don't want pressure back on the umpire in that situation to re-bounce it, and bounce it straight, but I think we've got to have that ability and we don't at the moment."

Collingwood midfielder Tarkyn Lockyer said the ball in question should have been recalled, while Simpson called for the centre bounce to be scrapped entirely and replaced with a throw upwards.

But under the AFL's rules, the ball will only be recalled if it has made contact with the umpire at the time of the bounce. "If it's a bounce that both ruckmen can't contest, it's a bad one, in this case the umpire just calls 'play on' immediately so that any players within the vicinity can contest it," AFL media manager Patrick Keane said.

He said the bounce was an intrinsic part of the game and it would be retained.

Collingwood's football operations chief, Geoff Walsh, was resigned to the fact the club would have to accept the decision and "get on with it".

"It's one of the vagaries of the game, isn't it?" he said on 3AW Radio yesterday. "It's the shape of the ball, it's human error."

In 2005, Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse said there were too many inconsistencies with the bounce.

"One bloke launches it into orbit and the next makes the players' eyebrows. It's not fair to the competing ruckmen," he said. Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews, Geelong's Mark Thompson and Sydney's Paul Roos have also previously signalled their opposition to the bounce's retention. -- With AAP

© 2008 The Age

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