The AFL’s umpires boss is standing by the controversial dissent free kicks paid across the weekend, declaring “the approach going forward won’t change”.

Dan Richardson said the umpires understand the debate surrounding the calls for verbally and visually challenging their decisions, but said players have to live with the consequences of doing so.

It follows the hefty price GWS paid late in their narrow loss to Carlton, Stephen Coniglio giving away a free kick that led to a certain goal after throwing his arms in the air and questioning why a free hadn’t been paid against the Blues.

Richardson addressed that free kick specifically, ticking off the decision while encouraging players to respect umpires and their “human response” to being questioned.

“If there was no challenge to the decision, regardless of personal opinion on the threshold, then no free kick could or would have been paid,” he said.

“Just like we have some players or coaches who occasionally get emotional, or become overly expressive when under pressure, we also have umpires with differing levels of temperament.

“We have a set of guidelines for the umpires to work between, and we coach them, but we also can’t coach human response.”

He said umpires would continue to pay dissent free kicks moving forward particularly when there’s been an accumulation of incidents within a specific game.

It’s somewhat of a backflip, the AFL having told umpires last year to soften their hardline stance after a series of harsh calls were made against players showing a small level of emotion.

“Footy is not black and white, it is one of the hardest games to umpire, there is a level of ‘grey’ and within this area is where the debate always sits,” Richardson said.

“The umpires understand in the heat of battle there are going to be times regarding this rule, whether it has been an accumulation across the match or a single response, a time comes where they need to make a call.”

Earlier, Carlton defender Sam Docherty, whose team benefited directly from the Coniglio decision, stressed it was important to protect the umpires.

“An overarching principle of why they brought in the dissent rule was to protect the umpires and I think that itself is what it should be,” he said.

“The hard part with it, it’s open to interpretation between umpires and some things will get paid, some won’t.

“There’s grey all over it … you’ve just got to accept that’s part of AFL footy and it’s an incredibly hard game to umpire and our umpires do a great job.”

Collingwood coach Craig McRae suggested if the threshold on dissent free kicks was being tightened, players would naturally adapt.

“It became pretty apparent early last year the change was coming and we adapted, like all the teams have adapted,” he said.

“If there’s going to be erring on one side or the other, I think that’s just natural course of the game and we’ll play within the rules.”

By Alex Mitchell in Canberra