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Find your Sport Nation frequencySmoking gun: Unanswered questions in AFL umpire saga
SEN • May 14th, 2025 12:31 pm
For the second week in a row the AFL's process, communication and integrity are being called into question amid an umpiring circus surrounding the handling of Lachie Schultz collapsing on field in the Collingwood clash against Fremantle.
With many experts and players questioning why play was not stopped despite Schultz collapsing on field, the AFL was quick to respond with a statement claiming the umpires had not seen the incident.
Since the aforementioned statement was released by Laura Kane and the AFL, audio of the communication between the four on-field umpires has been made public. It completely contradicts the AFL's claims.
The umpires can be heard very clearly acknowledging that there was an injured player, so why did the AFL statement claim the contrary?
It has opened up yet another embarrassing mishandling of a situation by the AFL just one week after it was humiliated in the handling of the Willie Rioli threatening behaviour incidents.
SEN's AFL experts unpack the sorry saga below.
AN UNFLATTERING PATTERN AT AFL HQ
Gerard Whateley
“It’s another mess at the AFL, this pattern of events is unflattering. Not much of this umpiring story makes sense to be honest.
“Why would the AFL release a statement on Monday saying the umps would have stopped play if they had seen Schultz when there was ample available evidence to the contrary?
“Just like the week before in the Willie Rioli case, the AFL didn’t do its work and that’s an unflattering pattern. They haven’t cross checked what went on and haven’t viewed the vision available to them. All of this undermines public faith in the administration.
“How it resolves now won’t matter as much as the mishandling. The umpires were chastised last night but there remain two very different accounts of what transpired.
"If the umpires did lie when questioned by AFL staff that is deeply troubling. If the AFL misrepresented circumstances of what happened, then that’s worse.
“Misjudgment was the marker of last week, this feels significantly worse. They needed a good season at HQ and frankly they aren’t having one. Questions of leadership and integrity are firmly on the table. The lines of these stories don’t marry up.”
WERE THE UMPIRES WRONG?
Gerard Whateley
“To listen to the audio was to hear a group of umps in a situation they had completely under control, had the ball turned in his direction of play, things would have been immediately halted. But they weren’t.
“One umpire was keeping vigil as he should have. Play might have been stopped through an abundance of caution but should have stopped when the ball was in the hands of Jamie Elliott.
“In my eyes that didn’t feel like a significant fail. The audio from the umpires is constantly live, as well as being fed to broadcast is goes to the umpires at the ground, it's all linked though a live loop.
“When asked to clarify the incident why would the umps tell the football department, they didn’t see Schultz when it was plainly documented that they did?”
UMPIRES GOT IT RIGHT
Nathan Buckley
“I'm angry. I'm agitated, and I don't know exactly why. I think that it might be a bit of PTSD when you get in a team or an organisation and mistakes happen, ownership isn't taken at different levels it throws everything into the shadows.
"It throws everything into disrepute. And this issue, which I think is a red herring, the on-field element of it is a red herring.
“I thought the umpires handled it perfectly on the night. The Jamie Elliott mark was the first opportunity to blow time off, but there was nominally time off anyway, with 30 seconds to have the shot on goal.
"The umpires had it under control, absolutely under control, and the vision and audio of that demonstrated it.”
DROP THE UMPIRES
Garry Lyon
"The umpires communicating to each other (and) in their own words they’ve seen the injured player which straight away contradicts the statement.
"The you hear an “oohh” when Lachie collapses. That’s when it should have stopped. The defence doesn’t wash.
"I think the umpires should be dropped and suspended. I'm not buying in any way shape or form given how dramatic it was. When that umpire says “oooh” that is a reaction to Lachie slumping back down; you don’t forget that.
"I don’t buy that they had no memory. It’s inexcusable and I'm not believing or accepting it. From that moment on and their response is they don’t remember? Then they are open to strong sanctioning.
"We're being asked to believe that this incident was erased from their memory?"
INTEGRITY AND FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP
Nathan Buckley
“This is now more about the AFL’s processes, more about their leadership, more about how information is transferred up or down. Even more concerning is whether there’s actual integrity in their process, whether what is being communicated is what actually happened.
“When you start questioning on that then you haven't led well enough. There’s got to be a huge inquest and time spent on this and really open and transparent communication of what has occurred so that we can get to the bottom of what's happening in there for this to have occurred is not acceptable.
“You've got the four umpires. You got Michael Jennings, who's head coach. You've got Steve McBurney, who's involved there somewhere, then you’ve got Josh Mahoney, up to Laura Kane and Andrew Dillon. So that's the chain of command.
“I don't think all of those people are on the same page right now and we’re six days down the track. “
LACK OF DUE PROCESS
Tim Watson
"The average fan is seeing games stopped for players having cramp. If we want to, we can halt the game.
"These umpires saw the incident because the audio says they did.
"There was a major dramatic incident on the field, it required a review of a level of robustness before any statement goes out.
"They have to make sure the check the audio, the AFL had access to everything the Agenda Setters did. You have to be sure that everything you’re saying publicly is correct."
IN DEFENCE OF KANE
Nathan Buckley
“I don't think it's Laura Kane's job to call up the arc and say, can you send me that that one minute of vision and flick it to my computer. That's a 10 second call.
"It takes 30 seconds to get up there. It takes a minute to watch. Surely, once you've spent that two minutes you know that the idea that the umpires didn't see it is not correct.
“So you can't go with that statement. So if Laura Kane has been informed of that, and she's gone with it on the basis and trusting the person that has informed her, well, then it needs to go down the chain to find out who came to this conclusion without doing the work and they need to be counselled?
"It might not necessarily serve for that to be aired publicly, unless you feel like that position is now untenable, and then you make the call.
“But this is all because process has not been followed, and for whatever reason, speaking openly and telling the truth is not being honoured or has not been observed.“
THE BUCK STOPS WITH KANE
Tim Watson
"The AFL corrected the original statement. You’d think the AFL would just check the audio.
"The buck has to stop with somebody so it’s going to stop with Laura Kane and now we’re looking at a very embarrassing situation for the AFL – again. Last week we had the Rioli stuff and we know how that played out.
"I don’t think Kane is being used as a scapegoat, she has put a statement out to say she takes responsibility for it all, so the buck stops with her. She's not walking away from that."
AFL IS A MESS
Garry Lyon
"The AFL are increasingly in the dark about these situations. Rioli, we didn’t suspend him when the Bailey Dale story came out, but then the other two came out as incidents that weren’t reported.
"Questions have to be asked of the governing body. They’re letting us down. The administer the game – yes there's challenges we wouldn’t understand - but you cant be missing on things like this.
"The words from (Darcy) Moore and McRae should have been the trigger for the AFL to go to work on this."
