St Kilda coach Brett Ratten has called out the umpires after his side's defeat to Geelong, questioning the lack of holding the ball calls in the match.
While the free-kick count was relatively even throughout the contest (13-12 Geelong's way), Ratten was left miffed after his side laid 87 tackles and received just three holding the ball decisions in their favour.
"To think you'd have (87) tackles, I thought we out-tackled them, and you get three free-kicks for the day?" he told reporters.
"I don't know if it's worth tackling, just set up behind the ball and flood back. I don't think we got reward for our effort in the tackling component of the game.
https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/brett-ratten-questions-umpires-after-st-kilda-loss-to-geelong/0abcc011-da5d-4de4-9add-8a121917d9a0
Asked by a reporter if he was upset by Geelong players seeming to drop or throw the ball at times on Friday night, Ratten responded, “You said it, I didn’t say it.”
“If that’s a handball - jeepers.”
https://twitter.com/merrrnique/status/1393202985203765254
Have raised this before, there seems to be two different interpretations of holding the ball, have heard umpires saying a player attempted to dispose of the ball albeit with one hand, while another will just call it incorrect disposal. I think if you don't kick it and you don't handball correctly when tackled with or without prior then its a free.
Have seen us make consecutive tackles where the opposition just drop the ball on each occasion and it's called play on only for them to transition from congestion and score against the run of play. Notice that teams tend to try and knock the ball out of our hands when they tackle us and that seems to be rewarded more often than not.
Like Ratten says there is no point tacking if the tackler isn't rewarded especially if you are committing more than one player to the tackle as you are then outnumbered if the ball finds its way out of congestion.
Given the Cats seem to be the team that throws consistently I wonder if that annoys Hocking to the point where he will suggest a rule change to address an issue seemingly giving one team an advantage over all other teams.
