Greats slam contentious push in the back calls

FORMER AFL stars Kane Cornes and Matthew Lloyd were scathing in response to contentious missed umpiring decisions from round four.

Friday’s Geelong v Brisbane game was marred by separate incidents late in the game where obvious push in the back free kicks weren’t paid, ultimately leading to Cats goals in their tight 80-70 win.

Speaking on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show, Cornes commented on the lack of understanding of push in the back rule and how it’s being umpired this year.

“It’s an awful position for the AFL to be in when after round four we don’t know what a push in the back is,” he said.

“The umpire explained it and he explained it wrong.

“Do you expect the AFL to come out and go ‘look, those two ones there we got wrong, and this is how we’re going to adjudicate it going forward’?

“The fans, media and players are confused.”

The Power legend thinks it leaves the AFL in a problematic situation in how they proceed to judge the rule going forward after Tom Hawkins and Harris Andrews both appeared to push their opponent in the back without being penalised in separate incidents in the last quarter of Friday’s clash.

“The issue now is there’ll be an over-correction, so in round five we’re going to see probably six or seven paid this week that wouldn’t have been paid previously,” Cornes said.

“For a simple push in the back decision, we’re all confused.

“It’s an issue the AFL have to sort out this week.”

Five-time All-Australian Lloyd believes the over-complication of the ruling has caused unnecessary confusion and needs to be looked at.

“The problem is they’re never paying them,” he said.

“The rule used to be the hands in the back, it’s a free, just to make it easy for umpires. They’ve taken that away.

“Now the players get away with murder. It’s rare that they’re ever paid.”

All eyes will be on how the push in the back rule will be umpired for the rest of the season.

– BY ETHAN CLARK/ SEN