“Nah mate, ya ducked ya head” was a sentence I heard many times as a young footballer. It wasn't always directed to me or my team, often it was an opponent receiving this explanation. It was an example of an umpire using his discretion not to award a free kick even though he had seen a high tackle that under the rules should have been penalised. If the player with the ball made a considerable contribution to the tackle going high, then an umpire might say “tough luck champ that was your doing”. Of course the umpire could choose to ignore this aspect and just give the free kick. It was his discretion after all. The best bit about it though, was that it seemed most of us knew exactly what was happening when a player ducked his head, was hit high, and was not given a free kick for a high tackle. It made sense.
Another classic of the era was “You took 'em on!” when a player would clearly challenge the tackler before getting caught with the ball. If you had the ball and were tackled the umpire would give you a chance, and sometime you only needed to try and get rid of it to be safe from giving away a free kick, but if you tried to beat a tackle or tackler and it didn't work, goneski.
As the game changed from semi professional to completely professional, the governing body of the top league in the sport, the AFL, seems to have found itself under pressure to explain why some were free kicks and why some were not. Greater media concentration (more games on TV, more replays, more footy talk shows etc) meant that each inconsistency that arose, which is natural when umpires are using their discretion, would be put under ever increasing scrutiny. “We'll be asking for clarification” was a popular way of saying “I think we have been ripped off and I want answers” without saying it publicly but the pressure mounts regardless.