SA Footy

With ongoing issues with DRS, VAR and the farcical AFL debarcle going on, do technological reviews help in sport? Should we keep it as it used to be, just live by the umpires decision?

gadj1976 wrote:With ongoing issues with DRS, VAR and the farcical AFL debarcle going on, do technological reviews help in sport? Should we keep it as it used to be, just live by the umpires decision?

I don't think technology is avoidable unfortunately ... Without it the broadcast partner will still show the close up slow-mo's of every error, this way I guess there's an opportunity to act.

IMHO sport is much worse for it .. I watched an NRL game last season that was close at the end and a team scored a try and all the supporters went nuts for about 5 seconds then silence waiting to see if the try would stand. Same now happens with AFL and Football/Soccer.

That moment when your team scores at a clutch moment should be unbridled excitement, but more and more that's slipping away.

Not sure what the younger folk think (and lets face it, to the decision makers they would be the only ones that matter) but IMHO Sport becoming business over the last I dunno say 20 years, has reduced excitement levels.

Understand Im an old bastard though and as annoying as technology can be, I still haven't switched off yet. I find it one of the remaining attractive attributes of the SANFL that it's still a purer form of the code.

gadj1976 wrote:With ongoing issues with DRS, VAR and the farcical AFL debarcle going on, do technological reviews help in sport? Should we keep it as it used to be, just live by the umpires decision?

They need tweaking for sure, but with betting being so alive in today’s society we can’t place such impacting decisions on a single individual, he.’lk end up getting shot.

gadj1976 wrote:With ongoing issues with DRS, VAR and the farcical AFL debarcle going on, do technological reviews help in sport? Should we keep it as it used to be, just live by the umpires decision?

If used within it's limitations 2D images of a 3D world, paralex error, frame speed, resolution of images artifacts and precision tracking of future trajectories (standard error of estimate) it is best used as guide to support the gut feel of onfield officials.

Its why I like the soft signal and the third official is looking for conclusive proof the onfield official is wrong.

What I cant stand is when the 3rd official starts looking for stuff that isn't there - Billy Bowden was the worst.

Im a bit of a dinosaur and traditionalist when it comes to my passion for sport so it's always going to take a lot of convincing for me to see the benefit of technology in sport.

Personally though i dont think any sport is using the technology well.

Cricket-
Was designed to be used to remove the howler but is now being used with strategy and chance in mind. Games are potentially one and loss based on how well a captain uses their reviews which is completely against the spirit of the game imo. Even when used correctly it comes down to a third umpires opinion and they are just as likely to make a blunder like we saw with Aleem Dar in the most recent of tests. Also have element of doubts with its accuracy at times with the odd seriously inconsistent tracking seen.

Soccer
Don't get me started on VAR. Absolute joke. Once again was implemented to correct clear and obvious decisions but now we are measuring toe nails as offside yet dont take a second look as to when the 'kick' leaves the foot. Like in correct all it's doing is throwing in another opinion on the decision with many cases of the video ref making clear and obvious errors themselves. Still so much inconsistency as we saw recently in the Liverpool / Wolves game. Has taken a lot of emotion out the game and added frustration, confusion and anger. This is the worst use of technology in any sport.

AFL
The AFL has half arsed their step into the world of video technology. Goal technology should be the simplest use of the technology available bu the AFL have found a way to stuff this up. Lucky for football lovers though the game moves so quick its hard to see how they could implement technology for anything other than goal line/boundary line technology.

At the end of the day good and bad decisions have always been part of sport and to be honest are a good lesson in life. The biggest critism i can place on sports technology is 'has it added to my enjoyment of watching the sport' and all cases i can easily say NO.