To his credit, Angus Monfries came out and admitted he took a dive on a number of occasions this season in an article in today’s Herald Sun.
I don’t think the news would be a shock to many people as the forward has built a reputation for diving over his career.
My view on this is that it’s cheating and Angus Monfries isn’t the only player to have a reputation for it.
Steve Johnson, Lance Franklin, Hayden Ballantyne and Brent Harvey are other known offenders.
There is nothing worse than sitting at the MCG and watching a player successfully get paid a free kick from a blatant dive. If it’s paid against your side you would be filthy and the worst thing of all is when it gets paid to one of your own players.
It’s cringe-worthy and almost embarrassing.
Umpires have a hard enough job as it is these days with the number of people around the ball. They shouldn’t have to worry about spotting whether a player is diving or not.
18 Months ago the AFL introduced new rules to crack down on diving but we haven’t heard a whisper since.
In their review of the tribunal system in the 2009/10 off-season they introduced a fine system for players who would stage.
Players could be fined up to $2,400 for diving.
“That was one of the overwhelming things that kept coming back – coaches felt that staging was a blight on the game, wasn’t in the spirit of the game,” Umpiring director Jeff Gieschen said in February of 2010.
Not one player has been reported or fined for diving since introduced at the start of the 2010 season. Yet we continually see fans diving for free kicks on a weekly basis.
Steve Johnson and Lance Franklin have both been accused of diving in games this season and the worrying trend is that it it’s happening in the 4th quarter of games that have been decided by less than a kick.
Once again credit must go to Angus Monfries who this morning admitted to diving, hopefully he can cut it out of his game but more important I hope the AFL wake up and finally crack down on offenders.
