Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The Siren Drama

On the weekend there was an AFL game between St Kilda and Fremantle in Launceston. It was a very tight finish with less than a goal (6 points) separating the teams in the final stages. Suddenly most of the Fremantle team was surrounding the umpire protesting about something. Nobody had any idea why, including Dermott Brereton in the commentary booth. Apparently the siren went but none of the umpires heard it, a lot of the crowd wouldn’t have heard it either as there was a lot of cheering that usually comes with a tight finish. The umpires allowed play to go on for another 15 seconds and St Kilda kicked a point to level the scores. Mass confusion erupted especially from Fremantle as they thought they had just won their first game in Tassie.

Tonight the AFL Commission will decide whether to overturn the result or let it stand and everyone appears has an opinion. Brisbane Lions coach, Leigh Matthews, preferred to talk about this issue than how his own team is going.

I was watching the end of the match and have since seen some very interesting explanations on the events from the Fox Footy channel, such as a bloke in the crowd tapping on the window of the timekeepers booth to alert them to the fact that the game is still going. I am hoping that they will give the win to Fremantle

Paul Gough from afl.com.au has summed up both sides of the argument here

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so relieved the AFL has awarded Freemantle the win. They were ahead when the final siren sounded. The best response from St Kilda would be to accept the result with humility.

Tim Haynes said...

Good on St Kilda for ruling out any legal action. This would have made an embarrassing situation even more embarrassing. Sometimes you just have to sit back and think of what's best for the game not what's in the best interests of the club.