There's not many times a talking point in the world of AFL football lasts longer than a daily news cycle these days given how much content is being churned out, but we've had one this week.
It began last Friday night, when Collingwood and Geelong met at the MCG, and shortly after the game began, it became clear the umpires were being particularly harsh on players claiming marks from kicks which hadn't covered the required 15 metres.
Channel 7 commentator Matthew Richardson spotted it early on, and it then became the source of some discussion during the call, and by extension for the viewing audience as well.
Geelong coach Chris Scott was asked about it after the game and offered his thoughts, confirming there had been no prior communication of an umpiring crackdown on kicks not travelling the full distance.
The topic did the rounds of innumerable radio and TV panel shows over the weekend and Monday night, and was still going on Tuesday when Essendon coach Brad Scott, former AFL football operations manager, was asked his view.
"Umpires get coached like players get coached, and the key component in there is we would like a bit more information as to what the umpires are being coached on," he said.
"All games of footy across the weekend, when the ball was kicked 14 metres, it was called play on - the week before that wasn't happening. Clearly that was highlighted, clearly that was coached, but it wasn't communicated to us.
"We're the Friday night game this week ... you generally take your cue from the way the Friday night game is umpired, so we wouldn't mind a heads-up in terms of what's being coached."
The talking point was no longer the actual change in interpretation, which it appears most people in the football world support, but its lack of communication.
Which does seem, in an age of saturation football coverage, forensic analysis of every aspect of the game, and innumerable methods of conveying information to interested parties, a stunning example of not seeing the forest for the trees on the part of the AFL.
It also made particularly interesting an observation from Geelong's Mitch Duncan on Sunday when the crackdown was being discussed while he did a guest stint with radio 3AW.
"The umpires I think before COVID used to come into the rooms before the game. Now you don't see that," he said.
"They do come to training a lot, where you can form a relationship and ask those questions, but maybe if they started coming in (again) before the game, you could ask those questions (then) if we were playing on Saturday (and had seen Friday night's crackdown), like 'You were pretty hot on this, how are you guys thinking'?"
You'd hope that custom being abandoned during COVID and not resumed was just a simple oversight which can be easily remedied. And ditto at least coaches not being informed beforehand about the tightening up on the minimum distance for kicks to be marked.
As for the rest of us, well, there was a time not all that long ago when the AFL would send out a weekly memo to media as well as clubs explaining what rules and interpretations had been worked on and were to be give particular focus in the upcoming round.
It seemed to serve a purpose, even if it did lead to the first use of the "Rule of the Week" line, but at some point it was decided the initiative drew too much attention to the business of umpiring and away from the game, and was thus wound up.
That's a view which if anything is probably only more entrenched now at AFL headquarters following the bad PR which followed AFL football operations boss Laura Kane's attempt to explain controversy in the final moments of the North Melbourne-Collingwood game a month ago.
Brad Scott said on Tuesday that communication on umpiring had been great when the club had initiated contact. But isn't there an obvious flaw here, too? Namely, that one club might then become privy to guidance on this rule or that which rivals don't have the benefit of knowing?
And if it's good enough for club personnel to get the early word on changes of interpretation, it should be good enough for the fans, too.
Sure, there might be a fine line between keeping all stakeholders in the game in the loop about how it is going to be officiated, and assailing us with too much information which leads to an over-focus on specific areas rather than the game as a whole.
But if more of us, and certainly at the very least those clubs and coaches who were on stage last Friday night, had known more about what the umpires intended, we might have spent a lot less time talking about the officiating and a lot more about the stuff which really matters; the playing.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.