00:00Moving on from Ross, you mentioned Ross there.
00:03Whinging coaches, Steve, they're back again,
00:05and Damien Hardwick's becoming a recidivist at this sort of stuff.
00:08And on Friday night down at the Cattery,
00:09he was unhappy with the stand of the umpire,
00:11and he brought out the Roman Coliseum lines
00:14and the thumbs up, thumbs down for free kicks and the like,
00:17talking about basically the noise of affirmation at away venues.
00:21Deflecting, and this is, you know where he played a lot of his footy?
00:24At Easton and under Kevin Sheedy.
00:26Kevin Sheedy was the greatest deflector in the history of coaching.
00:28Damien Hardwick's taken a leaf out of his booklet.
00:30He's trying to just deflect away from the poor performance
00:33relatively of the Gold Coast Suns,
00:35and he's trying to just take the focus off that
00:37and worry about little things that don't mean anything.
00:39Talking about the umpiring on Friday night,
00:41yeah, they got a few dodgy ones,
00:42but there's dodgy ones every single week.
00:44It wasn't great though with Danger and Cameron.
00:47But it happens every single week.
00:48They're umpired differently down there.
00:49It happens every single week and every single game.
00:51Those two guys get a good run.
00:52There's no difference between games at Geelong
00:55to games at Optus Stadium, games at the Adelaide Oval.
00:58Games at the Gabba.
01:00Sydney probably don't have as big a noise of affirmation.
01:03But that's the challenge for the Gold Coast
01:05to create an environment where they get the advantage
01:07in the rub of the green when they're at home
01:09against the opposition.
01:10This is the opportunity for the Gold Coast Suns.
01:12Don't worry about whinging about it
01:13when you get done by the Cats on a Friday night.
01:15Get back to work.
01:16Get your players better
01:17because they've been a really disappointing team so far.
01:19Seven and six at the season,
01:21sitting in ninth position.
01:22Teams thought, a lot of football people,
01:24thought they were going to be a top four contender,
01:26premiership contender this year.
01:28They are a long way off that at the moment.
01:29So I think there's a real deflection there
01:31from Damien Hardwick.
01:32But the opportunity, the noise of affirmation
01:34at People First Stadium and the Gold Coast
01:36is to get people there supporting their team
01:39and have the same advantage
01:40that all the away teams have
01:41when they travel on the road as well.
01:43It's too casual up there.
01:44It's a carnival atmosphere.
01:45Well, they've got to sort that out.
01:47Yeah, it's like dream world.
01:48But yeah, everyone's having fun, which is fine.
01:51Hasn't got the passion that they have down at Geelong.
01:53Do you think it's rubbing off on the players?
01:55I thought Noah Anderson at halftime
01:57was in the end wasting his time talking to umpires.
02:01I'm not sure what you get out of that.
02:03And then after the game was asked again
02:04and sort of dodged around the question.
02:06But yeah, are they focusing too much on it?
02:09You as a coach, would you bother
02:10having your captain go up at halftime?
02:12I don't mind a little bit of clarification
02:14from the captain if that's what they need to do
02:15to work out what's going on
02:16and how they can get some advantage from that
02:18by understanding how the interpretation
02:20is going to be played that night.
02:21I've got no problem with that.
02:22But your point is,
02:24if it's the coach who's leading the charge
02:26in terms of just looking for excuses
02:27or other conversations to have
02:29rather than why aren't we good enough at the moment,
02:32then I think that might creep into the playing group
02:34and give them an out.
02:35Let them start looking for reasons why
02:37outside of their performance and their preparation
02:40and their ability to play at the moment.
02:41So I think that's a relevant point
02:43that maybe it does start to creep into your playing group
02:45and maybe then that starts to fracture.
02:47But congrats to Hardwick for speaking his mind
02:50in press conferences, I think they're pretty dull
02:52at the moment.
02:53At least it's given us something to talk about.
02:54So credit to him.
02:55No, but he's being honest.
02:57The AFL won't be happy, obviously,
02:58because I can't recall the umpires
03:00being under the pump like this so much.
03:03Well, there's been a fair bit of commentary
03:04around the umpiring standard this year.
03:05Well, yeah, hugely under the pump.
03:07Oh, it's been poor.
03:08The other thing with the umpires half,
03:10and I haven't really got an issue with this,
03:12but the descent rule still exists in the rule book.
03:15They haven't come out and said that descent's now okay.
03:18The descent levels in footy,
03:20they're certainly not at football levels,
03:22but there's a lot of carry-on going on
03:24after free kicks at the moment,
03:26and it just seems a free-for-all.
03:27I think, well, I wouldn't be surprised
03:29if there's a crackdown.
03:30At some stage, someone gets pinged for descent
03:32because it's back.
03:33Remember you did it and it was 50 metres.
03:35It's back.
03:35I can't agree with you on that.
03:36I can't agree with you.
03:37Yes, there's expressing some emotion
03:39every now and then after a decision
03:40that they don't agree with.
03:41I don't think you're entitled,
03:42as a human being, to respond.
03:44I agree, but they haven't come out
03:45and said it's okay.
03:46The rule's still there.
03:48But they're not being abused.
03:49So they're not being abused verbally.
03:51Remember they used to ping them
03:52just for pointing to the scoreboard.
03:54Yeah, which is stupid.
03:55That was a stupid interpretation of the rule.
03:58That's not...
03:59You've got to allow these people to be humans.
04:00They're not robots.
04:01Yeah.
04:01There's a lot of weird stuff goes on in footy.
04:03While we're on the umpires,
04:04the rub of the head,
04:05remember Frasier got done near the goal?
04:07Yes.
04:07Now, I was at the Bulldogs game
04:09Thursday night against Adelaide.
04:11Yeah.
04:12Down behind the goals
04:13in the Top Dogs area, actually.
04:15But Will Lewis,
04:18at one stage,
04:19the ball was down the other end.
04:21Two Adelaide players came up
04:23and rubbed on the head.
04:25And quite forcefully.
04:26At the same time.
04:27The umpire was about...
04:28What a little Buddha.
04:28They're just rubbing him for good luck, are they?
04:30The umpire was three metres away.
04:31He just looked at it and did nothing.
04:33So where's the consistency there?
04:35Just because the Bulls at the other end,
04:36Adelaide, are about to kick a goal.
04:38Don't let it go, umpire.
04:39I saw that.
04:40I saw it.
04:40And I put it in the notebook.
04:42And other people saw it.
04:43It should be paid half.
04:45If you're rubbing the head in one week
04:46and get pinged,
04:47and you do it in another area,
04:49get pinged.
04:49So that was a really bad one
04:50that slipped under the radar Thursday night.
04:53Well, I'm sure they will talk about that
04:54in the umpire review
04:55when they review the games
04:56from the weekend, Steve.
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