It was late February when AFL football operations boss Mark Evans said he believed the league had “come a long way” with its score review system. The next step, he said, was the introduction of goal-line cameras. “We’re looking to trial that at least during parts of the year,” he said.

Let’s hope they are not waiting until September, given the handful of incidents witnessed over the weekend. The one which would most obviously have been solved, even by a “GoPro” stuck in a goalpost, was Ben Sinclair’s goal in Sydney on Saturday night. His shot may or may not have been touched on the line, but the four angles on show to the officials up in the stands may as well have been of the North Pole, such was the light they shed on the mystery.

The idea of score reviews was first raised by then AFL footy ops manager Adrian Anderson a few days after the 2009 grand final, 4½ years ago. For god’s sake, is that not long enough to have had the adequate technology trialled and already in place? Particularly as we have already seen it used by Channel 10 and even the ABC, covering SANFL football, more than five years ago. Then, it was just a bonus for viewers. Now, it is central to making an important rule change work smoothly.

But entering a third season with score reviews part of the rules of the game, we still don’t have the most basic equipment to facilitate them.

It is like asking a cricket umpire to adjudicate on a run out without a side-on view of the stumps and crease. That would be a laughable scenario. And in the fifth season since Geelong’s Tom Hawkins shaved the post in the close 2009 grand final but was still awarded a goal, so is this.

WAKE UP, JEFF

Yes, Jeff Garlett, we know you can play. And that like so many of your contemporaries, you enjoy practising those cheeky little checkside dribblers.

But we respectfully suggest you leave them on the training track. Because when your side is on a roll, there’s just 10 minutes left, and you have a chance to put your team within eight points, hitting the post from five metres out is not going to win you too many fans.

Players seem to have decided drop punts and actually kicking the ball in the air are too boring. Playing the percentages can be like that. But they also mean you are more likely to get the desired result.