HOMETOWN UMPIRING IN THE AFL 2024

In an AFL season that all acknowledge has been remarkable, nobody has yet commented on the most remarkable thing of all – There has been an incredible reversal this year in hometown umpiring.

 For around twenty years I have been keeping free kick statistics that conclusively proved that home-town umpiring is real. These stats are generally, year-by-year very consistent.

 If you split the games into categories delineating teams by the home state, you almost invariably got this:

 HOME VIC TEAMS v AWAY VIC TEAMS    A small but consistent advantage to the home team, both in overall free kicks over the season, and in those Games Of Large Differential (GOLD) where one team gets 56% or more of frees and the other gets 44% or less.

 HOME NON-VIC TEAMS v AWAY NON-VIC TEAMS A consistent advantage to the home side, in many seasons a very large advantage to the home side, both in overall free kicks and in GOLD GAMES

 HOME NON-VIC TEAMS v AWAY VIC TEAMS   A consistent advantage to the home side, in many seasons a very large advantage to the home side, both in overall free kicks and in GOLD GAMES

 HOME VIC TEAMS v AWAY NON-VIC TEAMS A consistent advantage to the home side, in almost all seasons a very large advantage to the home side, both in overall free kicks and in GOLD GAMES.

 INTERSTATE DERBIES/SHOWDOWN - inevitably a very large advantage to the ‘home’ team both in overall free kicks and in GOLD GAMES.

 In almost every season up until this season, while ALL home teams had an advantage, the advantage for Home Victorian teams was greater when playing Non-Vic Away teams than it was for the Non-Victorian Home teams playing Victorian Away teams.

 BUT NOT THIS YEAR. IN 2024 THE ADVANTAGE HAS REVERSED WITH NON-VIC SIDES HAVING A SUBSTANTIAL ADVANTAGE.

 Interestingly, it has also been an aberrant year when Vic teams play one another with Away Victorian sides doing far better than their home counterparts.  See Table below with home side mentioned first.

 So, this year in blow-out free-kick games between Non-Victorian and

Victorian teams, the figures are about double in favour of the Non-Vic sides. And the Away Vic sides versus Home Vic sides also have done extremely well.

Only in games between Non-Vic teams are figures as expected.

 Perhaps it has been the change in the umpiring heirarchy that has brought about this change. Some will say it is because the Non-Vic sides are stronger this year they are winning more free-kicks but history would suggest that the strength of teams has little to do with the free kicks they receive.

 As to which teams have come out best in GOLD games of 2024. The Brisbane Lions have done best, Gold Coast second best and Richmond worst.

 GOLD GAME NET 2024

Brisbane 9, Gold Coast 7,  Essendon/Fremantle 4, Carlton 3, Adelaide/West Coast 2, Western Bulldogs 1, Sydney Swans 0, Port Adelaide/St Kilda -1, Collingwood -2, North Melbourne -3, Geelong/Hawthorn/Melbourne -4, GWS -5, Richmond -8.

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