Damo, Joey At Odds Over Umpire Contact

Triple M Footy’s Damian Barrett and Leigh Montagna found themselves at odds over whether AFL umpires should be touched at all by players.

The contentious issue reared its head again this week as Richmond superstar Dustin Martin was controversially let off with a $1500 fine for making, what match review officer Michael Christian deemed to be, ‘careless’ contact with an umpire rather than intentional contact. 

While speaking on Triple M’s Rush Hour during The Midweek Rub, Damo said he was all for umpires and players developing better rapport, but he was adamant that should not extend to physical contact out on the field and that that should be kept “black and white”. 

Damo believes players should receive one-week suspensions for choosing to touch umpires, but Montagna disagreed, saying that touching umpires in a respectful way is fine and that Christian actually made a “common sense” decision in not suspending Martin.

Damo told the fellas that Christian had changed his tune on umpire contact because Martin is the reigning Brownlow Medalist and second favourite for this year’s Brownlow.

James Brayshaw chimed in and said his issue was with players at grass roots level seeing AFL players avoiding suspension for making intentional contact with umpires and taking it upon themselves to physically demonstrate on umpires how certain free kicks incidents played out, potentially leading to “something that you should actually never do”.