 Spokes spoke to players many times when incidents flared, and waited for players to return to position before restarting play, which was not common practice for umpires at the time.However, the high volume of reports made during this game is also speculated to have been a deliberate directive by the league to the umpiring team, in response to the previous week's preliminary final between and – a match well known to have been at least as rough as the grand final, including a wild final quarter melee with many kicks and punches thrown, but from which only one player was reported.Supporting this, "The Record" made specific note that Matthews and Whitfield were both reported for time-wasting by throwing or kicking the ball away after a free kick; this had been a technically reportable offence for many years, but was almost never enforced in practice.