“AN OVERREACH OF TECHNOLOGY”: THE AFL’S REVIEW SYSTEM HAS AN “INHERENT FLAW”By Andrew Slevison
SEN
2 September 2022Gerard Whateley has called into question the legitimacy of the ARC system used by the AFL.
The ARC review hub was put through its paces late in Thursday night’s frenzied Elimination Final between Brisbane and Richmond at the Gabba.
Tigers forward Tom Lynch had a set shot from an acute angle with two minutes left which was signalled a goal by the goal umpire.
The decision was sent to ARC who adjudged it to be a point as it apparently crossed the line over the goalpost.
What’s worse for Tigers fans is that a Lynch goal would have likely finished the Lions, who then took it down the other end and managed to scrap a goal through Joe Daniher to steal a win by two points.
It is a decision that has been met with derision by Richmond coach Damien Hardwick and SEN broadcaster Whateley followed suit.
He says the system has an “inherent flaw” and the ARC was simply “pretending” in its deliberation.
“This is the demonstration of the inherent flaw in the system,” he said on SEN’s The Captain’s Run.
“I understand there are those who are slavishly devoted to technology, but I’ve seen enough in sport to say that its intervention actually just shifts the error rather than solves and creates the perfect world that people are after.
“The inherent flaw is that limited technology can give you an absolute result so that the three-dimensional world can be captured in a two-dimensional image.
“I cannot think of a clearer case study than this. So, the determination that was made was, ‘We can see the ball crosses the line over the top of the goalpost’.
“Well, we can’t. We can’t see when the ball crosses the line from the varying camera angles, so how could you possibly extrapolate where the ball crosses the line.
“But this is the way this system has been advanced and advocated for and used.
“There is no angle that technology can provide that can adequately answer those questions. There is an angle though and that’s the angle of the goal umpire.
“He saw it, he knew where the line was, he knew where the post was and he knew where the ball was, and he get overruled. That is an overreach of technology and the AFL can say all it likes to that, that they viewed all the angles and used all the freeze-frames to say the ball was over the post.
“That is pretending. You cannot tell that with the technology that is in play in this system.”
Hardwick suggested that perhaps it is time to scrap the review system altogether if they can’t get the technology right.
So, do we go back to the human involvement, human error and the umpire’s call? Or is there still a place for the technology and the ARC system?
Whateley believes a multi-billion industry like the AFL could perhaps afford an infrared beam that could help with judging balls that fly over the post.
“I think it can live somewhere within the limitations of a system,” Whateley added.
“So anything over the post can’t be reviewed. There is no angle unless, just say you were the biggest sport in the country, a multi-billion dollar sport that might put an infrared beam in the top of the post because you wanted to get everything perfect.
“But you’d have to be the biggest sport in the country and a multi-billion business to even contemplate that. So let’s take that off the table.
“Let’s just understand the things that can be captured and the things that can’t be captured. So what should happen from the ARC last night is it should say, ‘The ball was over the post, it’s impossible to say when that ball crosses the line, the goal umpire is in an excellent position, the goal umpire’s call stands’.
“I think we would all go, ‘Yep, it may very well have passed over the post, but there is no way of knowing that to the satisfaction of overruling the eyes on the scene’.”
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/09/02/an-overreach-of-technology-the-afls-review-system-has-an-inherent-flaw/
