Whateley
Gerard's Editorial | Failures of the ARC & Scott Pendlebury's legend grows (27.04.26)
26 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Monday morning.
This is your town. This is your station. This is Waitley. Good morning. Snap judgments are for what you feel most passionately from the weekend of sports and typically the round of football. It doesn't have to make sense to everyone else, nor be a popular or universal opinion. It just has to move you to give voice to it.
Chapter 2: What are the shortcomings of the ARC in the AFL?
The old Shrek mantra, better out than in, applies. I'll go first today. This is a rant on technology and sport. If you're not up for it, it'll take about five minutes. So go spend some time with Tom and talk federal politics or Trump assassination attempts. Here goes. The intrusion of technology will not be the salvation of our sport. It will be its ruination. Mark my words.
You think holding the ball is stuffed, and it is, but it's got nothing on the whims of the arc that have been unleashed. What we saw at Marvel Stadium yesterday was not an intrusion. It was an invasion. And like most invasions, it was ill-conceived, clumsy, and flawed in its execution.
In the second quarter, we saw the most grotesque overreach yet under the guise of video review and the pursuit of perfection in decision making. And it failed by every measure. Go back and watch for yourself. With nine minutes 30 remaining in the second term, Nassar Wangani-Millera takes a long shot at goal. It slides across the face.
Watch particularly the positioning of the goal umpire and the boundary umpire. The goal ump is perfectly placed, staring straight down the line. The boundary umpire is on duty at the behind post, barely a metre from the contest. Instantly, both signal the ball are behind. Without any hesitation, the goal umpire pats the chest.
The boundary umpire stretches the right arm to signal the position of the ball. Each does so definitively and without hesitation. There is no doubt about the positioning of the ball from the eyewitnesses in real time. It's not a mark to Rowan Marshall. It wasn't even close.
One minute and one second later came the fateful intervention from the voice of God that changed the very nature of the sport. Looking at this angle, we can see the ball is controlled before crossing the behind line. In the immortal words of Luke Skywalker, every word of what you just said was wrong.
The voice of God was so sure of what the technology showed, he stopped the game and ordered the mark to Marshall be paid, resulting in a shot at goal. 37 seconds of actual game time had elapsed.
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Chapter 3: How did technology impact the recent AFL match decisions?
This was the pre-season change Greg Swann told us about at the Super Bowl to correct what happened when the Crows were robbed by a patently incorrect call against the Swanns those seasons ago. And as always happens, the quest for correction gave us a new level of howler. The evidence that was presented as definitive failed every level of examination, beginning with the relevant law.
A mark is not completed when the player touches the ball. First contact isn't control. It's why defenders are able to spoil the ball out of a forward's hands before it's judged a completed mark. Yet in the video adjudication, the moment the ball touches the hands, it's regarded as a mark. Then there's the slavish devotion to limited technology.
Compulsory reading here is the Dave Barham piece in The Age last week, who pulled the curtain back on the illusions and inadequacies of camera angles shown on television versus reality. God in the Ark used a camera fitted to the left-hand goalpost looking through the right-hand goalpost to determine the humans directly in line with the ball were wrong.
This is why the goal and boundary umpires have completely lost their nerve. Even when they are absolutely certain and they know they are right, they are still getting overruled. The camera in the post is subject to all manner of variation from positioning to the zoom lens.
We've previously demonstrated a contradiction between the camera on one post showing all of the ball over all of the line, while the camera on the other post shows the opposite. It becomes a game of choose your own adventure. Yet we have allowed a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional world to hold sway. This is the worship of false idols. So the game was stopped yesterday.
Nobody watching or playing had any clue what was being done. And the mark paid. Marsha was allowed to take the shot and kick the goal. If the AFL reviews these events today and determines this is exactly what was intended and will be empowered and encouraged henceforth, then the game will take a giant leap toward ruin.
The encroachment of technology into the decision-making has been dreadful this season. Well-intentioned as always, flawed in reality. It started with the ARC overruling an umpire on an insufficient intent call, masquerading as a last disposal out of bounds infringement. The truth was never admitted.
It escalated to a doctor in the ARC overruling the medical practitioner on site who had matters completely under control. The desire is appropriate oversight.
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Chapter 4: What was the controversial decision made during the game?
It is actually poor practice. Let's get the decisions right is the greatest fallacy in sport. And it's at that altar the AFL worships right now. My sincere plea as someone who has seen this across 30 years in numerous other sports is please, please stop. Use yesterday's intrusion as the moment to say this is not actually what we want.
technology will never deliver the perfect game, but used like it was yesterday, it will tear at its fabric. Stop. Please stop.
I'm certainly get it right. We've had some bad ones with probably the most famous one in the last few years is the Adelaide one. We've actually reviewed that to be honest and the art could have, well the art knew within eight seconds that that was the wrong, you know, it was the wrong decision. And in my view, they should put that up.
If that happened again, we would call that back and they'd play the goal. Gives to Naz. He can load up from 52 metres out. Doesn't hit it well and he knew he didn't hit it well either. And a minor score to the right. 16 points here. The lead for St Kilda. The long kick out the far side. Willem Duers was underneath it. And it's been punched out of play. Boundary throw in on the boundary.
They're having a look. What for? They're all the way back for that kick in. Sure. Is it for the goal? Sorry, for the behind, sorry. It was Marshall. So they've waited till the ball's all the way up there. It's a mark. It's a mark. Wow. I've never seen the ball be that far away. It's three passages of play later. I had a feeling it was a mark, but I wasn't 100% sure.
I was trying to get the goal umpire to review it. They normally do with those ones, but, you know, I think the play sort of played out for about a minute, and then as soon as they called the third umpire, I knew what it was, and I was pretty happy. So, yeah, lucky umpire. I didn't have a clue what was going on. I just think that if they're going to do it, it's got to be clear cut.
They've got to get it right. If it's touch and go, I would think you're not changing the game and the flow of a game to make a decision like that.
And then as always happens in the next game, we were searching for a Griffin Logue fingertip on a ball and couldn't find it in a timely manner. The tech was of no use until it was too late. The AFL had a solution put to them to mitigate these arc issues six months ago. Vela Technologies uses cameras that run at 440 frames a second and provide a crystal clear picture.
Yesterday's issues could have been mitigated with superior technology, providing decision making with zero latency, no delay. But the AFL hasn't taken it up. So either do it right, or as Alistair Clarkson says, don't do it at all.
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Chapter 5: How does Gerard criticize the use of technology in sports?
It's enormously difficult. I'd ideally prefer that there was none. And we just leave it up to the umps to adjudicate. There's mistakes by players, there's mistakes by umpires, and it's just like... The ball goes through, whether it's touched by a fingernail or not, who cares really? Whether it snicks the post or not, who cares really? Yeah, just make the call.
Swings and roundabouts, you're going to win some, you're going to lose some. Because with... It seems to be just as much conjecture now as what there always was.
Just as much conjecture now as there always was. As Steve said, it's like communism. Good in theory, bad in practice. It's safe to come back to the radio now. Your snap judgments, 1-300-736-736. The 40 Wings temper text is 0433-981116. The difference is temper. We'll go to the footy of the rest of the round. Shall we?
We can go to the footy for the rest of the season and not see anything as good as what Scott Pendlebury conjured on Anzac Day. From halfway through the third quarter, you could feel what was building and the magnitude of its progressive dawning in the stands. That might have been my favourite part of it.
It was one of those rare and precious occasions where everyone was in on it, as is the AFL slogan. The count to career-high disposals, the march toward a historic fourth Anzac medal. It's remarkable that in game 431, Pendlebury could add something so significant to his catalogue.
I often think with the iconic musicians, how does Bruce Springsteen land a new song to take a place in his greatest ever hits? It's almost impossible. It's probably 33 years since Streets of Philadelphia. Yet Pendlebury did it. A game that will be spoken of in his legacy.
The involvement of the crowd, the Pendle's chant, it illustrated why the record-breaking game must be played at the MCG with the Collingwood faithful present en masse. It's too important for any other setting. We can go to the footy for the rest of the year and we won't see anything as good as that.
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