Diving has no place in a watchable AFL game
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/diving-has-no-place-in-afl/2008/07/05/1214951115555.html

Diving has no place in a watchable AFL game
Campbell Brown | July 6, 2008

GRAHAM Kennedy would be proud that Australian acting is alive and well — unfortunately, the good work is not being conducted in studios, but on our football fields. And some of the acting is worthy of Logie award nominations.

I'm referring to players diving and staging for free kicks — an alarming practice that I believe is becoming far too common.

There would scarcely be a player who hasn't over-emphasised a touch or movement at some stage to try to gain the attention of the umpire and receive a free kick. That might commonly involve exaggerated moves in a marking contest or throwing your body forward in a tackle. But what we are seeing this season is increasingly widespread staging — when players get in a push and a shove and one player dives to the ground.

Most of us would have watched soccer and seen players go to ground after the sort of contact that a child taking his first steps could withstand. Soccer people call it simulation, others use the terms embellishment or strategy and believe that if their team is awarded a free kick, all is well.

The practice became so common that clubs were teaching young players how to dive at junior clinics. The world body, FIFA, had to act and did so by bringing in a rule allowing the referee to "yellow card" any player he deemed to have exaggerated the amount of contact present in a challenge.

Well, I'm seeing this in football. It is not in the spirit of the game, it is a blight on our great game and it must be controlled.

I think these acts have become more prevalent because players and teams are trying to seek any advantage they can, whether that be physical or mental.

If this trend continues, the AFL should consider a similar response to the soccer solution and instruct umpires to award free kicks against players who they deem are blatantly staging. This will eliminate the problem before it becomes an epidemic.

As soon as the umpires' intentions are communicated and become clear, players will think before they "act" and, if penalised, disadvantage their team.

The AFL introduced fines for wrestling because of the image the behaviour was sending to the community. With the assistance of a financial deterrent, players quickly got the message that it was generally not worth it.

Staging, diving or whatever you want to call it has just as detrimental an affect. I propose that the AFL also reviews games in which it believes players have staged for a free kick and financially penalise them accordingly.

This keeps added pressure off the umpires, who don't get the luxury of seeing repeated replays and slow motion views to pick up all incidents of staging. Umpires often have just a split second to make a decision and may not even be in the best position to make the call, and would often have to give the player the benefit of the doubt.

Players that exaggerate, embellish, simulate or dive deserve to be censured. It's the only way to make our great game a fairer contest and a better spectacle.

Stephen Milne is probably the worst i have seen.

Boomer Harvey wasnt to bad when we played the Kangas in Canberra a few seasons back, i think it was Boomer anyway.