Cometti: Think again on goal reviews

The Rory Sloane goal review in the Adelaide v Richmond game on Saturday night has really got me confused.

I wasn't at the game. But watching the game on TV it seemed the sorry saga ended with the goal umpire who "thought it was a goal" crossing his flags to cancel his previous decision.

So, did he actually wave the flags for a goal BEFORE the review?

It's not unprecedented but that sure is a late review.

It's time to scrap the whole damn thing.

Over time I'm sure numerous players have gone to their graves insisting goals were points and points were goals in umpteen matches. It's commonplace.

In fact, without even offering an example I'm sure finals and probably a grand final or two have been decided by a touched ball being paid a goal or a goal umpire guessing wrong on a kick sailing high over a goal post that unfortunately didn't continue up to infinity.

It's worth mentioning there was a contentious field umpiring decision late in the same game that did as much to influence the outcome (and for two games at Etihad on Friday and Saturday).

And don't forget the Crows scored a goal immediately from the kick in after the reversal. So really, just another example of "the old seven-point play".

Doing away with these reviews will certainly lead to TV coverage unmercifully showing up goal umpiring mistakes from time to time.

But better that than what we saw on Saturday night.

By the nature of the job, goal umpires need to be confident and assertive.

In this case the guy was both. Why bother?

Even though he was right, what about next time?

A flawed system is encouraging him to reach for an unconvincing crutch.

Let's just accept that human error is part of footy.

We accept it from players, field umpires, boundary umpires and commentators on a minute-by-minute basis, so let's just "re-include" goal umpires.

The attempted improvement is proving to be no improvement at all.

If only the Zapruder film got this much attention!