Dockers Appeal Over Siren Fiasco

The Age

Monday May 1, 2006

MARTIN BLAKE, LAUNCESTON

THE AFL has launched an investigation into the finish of yesterday's drawn game between St Kilda and Fremantle at Aurora Stadium in Launceston, as the Dockers demand that they be handed the four premiership points.

In one of the most amazing and controversial finishes in the league's 109-year history, Fremantle was one point in front at the 29-minute mark of the final quarter when the siren appeared to end the game, and the Dockers players began celebrating their triumph.

But umpire Mathew Nicholls did not hear the siren, and bounced the football to allow play to continue despite Fremantle players' protests.

St Kilda scrambled a behind, kicked by Steven Baker, and the siren rang a second time.

As confusion reigned, the umpires conferred and awarded Baker a free kick for being felled after he took his original kick.

Baker took the opportunity to have another shot for goal from 40 metres out but again kicked a point.

Fremantle immediately lodged a formal protest and the AFL called in football operations manager Adrian Anderson to investigate. But under the rules of Australian football, the match is not officially over until the umpire acknowledges the siren.

Dockers coach Chris Connolly was furious, saying that St Kilda ought to admit that it lost.

"Can I tell you if the boot was on the other foot I'd be putting my hand up," he said. "If you're St Kilda, siren's gone and you've won it, make no bones about that. There's got to be some value of honesty and some value of integrity. I don't know their position, but that would be the position of the Fremantle Football Club. It's the values in sport that are most important. They underpin everything."

TAB Sportsbet and Centrebet have paid out on the draw.

Both betting agencies are treating the result as a draw, regardless of whether the Dockers are successful in their appeal.

TAB Sportsbet spokesman Glenn Munsie said the agency had received a fax from the AFL, which was signed by both goal umpires and a third official, standard procedure for every game. "We're paying out on a draw, whatever happens tomorrow or later in the week doesn't matter to us. It's a draw," Mr Munsie said.

© 2006 The Age

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