Wallace questions umpires' decisions
06 June 2006
Herald Sun
Mark Robinson
TERRY Wallace was half-satisfied yesterday after talking to AFL umpires' boss Jeff Gieschen about six decisions made in Saturday night's 11-point loss to Fremantle.
Conceding his post-match frustration had subsided yesterday, the Richmond coach received a 50-50 correct/incorrect response from Gieschen.
"I wasn't angry, I just purely and simply wanted clarification about probably six decisions we had down that we wanted clarification on," Wallace said.
"They were saying they were about half-half . . . I didn't agree with it, but I accepted it."
In a controversial match for umpires, Wallace discussed with Gieschen:
* DEAN Polo's unpaid mark in the final quarter;
* KAYNE Pettifer adjudged as kicking the ball deliberately out of bounds in the second quarter;
* RAY Hall being penalised for holding the ball in the final quarter;
* PETTIFER'S incident with Des Headland in the second quarter;
* DARREN Gaspar's clash with Jeff Farmer, where he had his hair pulled in the final quarter, and;
* GREG Stafford getting his arms chopped in a marking contest in the second quarter.
Gieschen acknowledged last night the first three were correct decisions and the final three were incorrect.
Yesterday the Tigers, who did not blame umpires for the loss, were most disturbed by the events surrounding Headland's attack on Pettifer, an incident that incurred the Dockers forward a two-match ban.
Wallace said Pettifer should have got a free kick and a 50m penalty. Instead, Pettifer got the free, plus a point was paid to Fremantle.
"I'm not saying this from a game-changing point of view, but the kick-in . . . it should not have been a point, it should've been a free kick. It should've been a 50m penalty and we play on straight away, which I've instructed my guys to do, but it was actually brought back," Wallace said.
"So we lost everything. I thought that was the worst one of the lot."
Gieschen agreed: "It should not have been a point to Freo because he (the umpire) paid a free kick. Pettifer got the free kick, which was right, but then there was the report for attempting to strike. So that means a secondary offence, which means a 50m penalty, and that didn't get paid," he said.
Wallace and Tigers officials were staggered Farmer was not reported for misconduct.
"A guy's got a free kick, a bloke grabs him by the hair and wrenches it, shoves him around by the hair," Wallace said. "It is a reportable offence, misconduct."
Gieschen said the umpire did not see the hair contact.
"It should've been 50m if the umpire sees it, " Gieschen said.
Wallace sought clarification, not to complain to Gieschen, but to further educate his players.
"All I wanted was clarity so I could go back to my players and say, `Look, this is the situation in this one, this is the ruling on this, boom, boom, boom', and we go through that with them," Wallace said.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,19377223%255E19771,00.html
