Conspiracy....?

We had quite a bit of debate about this after it's use in pre-season games.  The general opinion is that once you wear a Phoenix shirt until you stop, you are no longer counted as Australian... and vice versa.

I believe Leo Bertos even got a chorus of it.

That they are Wellingtonians.

Lets ban all chanting then just in case we offend them with our political incorrectness?

BroadArrow, if you asked the Australian players in our team their opinion on this chant they would see it for what it is . A bit of banter.

Another thought that I had about the ref's ability to make "Big Calls" is that these guys, have day jobs, and have to go to the office/work, and face the consequences/ridicule of any calls they make. Most professional refs have a certain amount of isolation from this although there performances are under greater scrutiny. Also I'm not sure that being a part time ref in the a-league pays that well so there probably isn't a huge queue of quality applicant to take  these guys places if they got stood down. (I am only guessing as to this last comment, if you know otherwise feel free to comment)

I believe the A-League are quite adamant on keeping their A panel small. There was 8 but Angelo Nardi resigned leaving 7 Mark Shield, Peter O'Leary, Matthew Breeze, Simon Pryzdacz, Peter Green, Ben Williams and Craig Zetter. They try and keep Shield and Breeze active 3 out of every 4 weeks, the rest rotate around the remaining two

I would have thought that any Aussies playing in our team would automaticlaly qulaify as kiwi's by association,and would therefore be smart enough to realise the "same old aussies" chant is not directed at them! Lets give them some credit, I'm sure they give us the benefit of the the doubt when we are baying for aussie blood!

This scenario plays in both codes of the oval ball game as well. Our players playing in their country receive a rough deal, some deservedly so.