Samoa – A nation of forward thinkers??

The Samoan flag but for how much longer??? (Courtesy: Google)

Based on articles found on the ABC website, the tiny island nation of Samoa has undergone some serious changes in recent months. The Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has changed the side of the road Samoans drive on and now has changed the time zone of Samoa.

The significance of the time zone change is that Samoa was on the eastern side of the International Date Line (IDL) which meant it was a day behind New Zealand and Australia its closest developed nations. Originally Samoa was on the same side of the IDL as NZ and Australia. However in 1892 it changed sides to reflect its trade with the US which is understandable given both Australia and NZ were nations in their infancy at the time.
As a result of the change Samoa, goes from Thursday 29^th Dec straight to Saturday 31^st Dec skipping Friday in the process. Surely skipping a Monday or a Tuesday would be a better idea than skipping a Friday, but each to their own I guess.

So Samoa goes from the last nation on the planet to see the sun set to the first nation to see the sun rise. The island nation of Kiribati may not take too kindly to Samoa taking the mantle of the first nation to see the sun rise and it will be interesting to see if the relationship between the island nations is strained in future months. If relations do become strained, Kiribati would have to send in its flotilla of warships … erm Triremes (???) to Apia in a show of strength against Samoa.

According to reports PM Tuilaepa also plans to change the flag and I imagine it will not stop there. As a suggestion I think he should change the position of all hot and cold water taps on basins as well. On a more serious note, perhaps changing the business hours to run simultaneously with Sydney or Auckland may be an option to consider and given it is a tropical nation it would mean that businesses are not open in the hottest part of the day and it may open the country up to more trade.

Should the AFL employ goal-line video technology for AFL matches?

This topic has often come up for debate in recent years and was unfortunately highlighted when a Tom Hawkins shot for goal actually hit the post in a grand final but was awarded a goal. St.Kilda lost the game and it would be easy to imagine that some of their supporters would be aggrieved to this day.

The game itself appears to have sped up in the last few years and yet the umpiring of the most important aspect of the game …scoring…has not changed in light of this. Therefore, assuming that something needs to be done to maintain accuracy, what solutions are available to AFL to remedy any mistakes.

Video Technology… Many sports have gone down this path and while it is successful in some sports (i.e. cricket with run-outs and the use of hot spot, or tennis with the use of Hawkeye or Rugby in general) it has not been as effective in others (e.g. American Football) as it can slow the game down. It is worth noting that an American Football game can take over 4 hours for just 60 minutes of actual playing time.

Does the AFL go down this path? In the knowledge that the game can be delayed by several minutes over the course of the game while contentious goals are reviewed by a fifth umpire, who would need to be employed just to review these decisions.

In my opinion the AFL indicated through its rule changes surrounding holding the ball and its experiment with the kicking backwards rule in the NAB cup that it wanted to keep the game competitive and retain a high action game (i.e. fast). Although it could also be argued that they wanted to slow the game down a little with the introduction of the substitute rule.

Video technology is expensive and not necessarily accurate and there are shortcomings with the use of the technology on Hawkeye for LBW decisions or video replays on low catches in cricket... Well according to the Indian’s anyway!!! 

More Goal Umpires…this may not be as costly to the AFL as the use of Video Technology, although there is problem that decisions are still prone to human error. But both Rugby Union and Rugby League use two umpires that stand behind each post to judge if the ball has passed correctly through the uprights.

Given the speed of an AFL match has increased, this may be an option as it would mean that goal umpires would have less ground to cover in a short time and this may lengthen the life span of a goal umpire (difficult to believe I know… but logically true). Potentially fewer mistakes are made given that the umpire is in position earlier and the game is not stopped to review a decision.

But I can already hear the cries of derision and the first question asked will be how the scoring will be signalled by the umpires to avoid confusion. Some thought has been given to this by yours truly and I think the following will logically work.

Both umpires to raise a flag at the pole to signal a goal (just as is in Rugby)

If it is a goal then one designated umpire at either end to perform the normal flag signal for the goal.

For points the umpire in control of the point region to signal a point with downward flag wave (as per Rugby) and then to signal the point as per the normal flag signal.

The contentious area is for touched or rushed behinds this is to be signalled by a downward flag waving motion by the umpire that sees it (and if both deem the point to be rushed then both signal the behind) this is followed by the normal flag waving signal for a behind by the designated goal scoring umpire.

Personally I favour the “More Goal Umpires” option; however it is all food for thought. Perhaps this is something that the AFL could consider as the game moves forward.