With five coaching premierships between them, Chris Scott and Damien Hardwick know a thing or two about how Australian rules football should be played, and furthermore, adjudicated.
So when both men bemoan the standard of officiating in a given match, perhaps there is indeed a systemic issue.
Geelong were far too good for the Suns on Thursday night, with Scott's charges handily defeating Hardwick's, condemning the Suns to their third consecutive loss.
Home ground advantage and the perplexing interpretation and subsequent implementation of the maligned "lasso rule" were in Hardwick's sights, as he, at his media-performing best, compared the Cattery to the Roman Colosseum after his side's loss.
"I thought there were challenges throughout the game," Hardwick said.
"The lasso rule where it comes off a guy's foot indiscriminately, I don't know - that's not what the rule's for, for mine. If someone kicks it out of bounds, absolutely, but if we're knocking it off someone's foot, and they're looking at that – they need to change it, it's an easy change.
"I think it's a ridiculous look, where the ball trickles off a guy's toe that's been hit into – it's not like he's deliberately kicked it out of bounds. It's not the reason we won or lost. I just think we change a lot of things, just change that.
"At the end of the day, it was like the Roman Colosseum. They (umpires) were waiting, then the crowd would do this one (indicated a thumbs down), and all of a sudden it was a free kick. At the end of the day, it is what it is. Home advantage, we understand that. You know you're up against it from the start. But a couple of them weren't there.
Scott was more balanced in his view, but still conceded that umpiring errors were a feature of the contest.
He was seen slamming the telephone in his box after what seemed like a textbook tackle executed by Bailey Smith on reigning Brownlow Medallist Matt Rowell went unrewarded, but was happy to give the umpiring fraternity a pass for the error.
Typically philosophical, Scott urged fans to be sure of the rules before publicly pooh-poohing the umpires, lest their own ignorance be on display.
"One of the things that, I think, is frustrating for fans, in general, is they don't quite understand the nuance that maybe the clubs do, because we have it explained to us in great detail," he said.
"The Bailey Smith one, that's just an error, and we should ignore that.
"Everyone who understands the nuance of that rule should just say, 'OK, ignore that', because it's an error.
"Mistakes happen all the time.
"If you're going to get frustrated, make sure it's not your own ignorance you're displaying for everyone."
Scott flagged rests for some of his elder statesmen, most notably, Patrick Dangerfield, even with two of the most daunting challenges in football populating the next two weeks of the Cats' fixture.
"Jeremy (Cameron) will definitely play, then Pat – we had talked about this period through the bye. We play the best team in the comp, and the team who's won the last two premierships in the next two games, so maybe that makes it a little bit harder," Scott said.
"I think we've got a pretty good record for about 15 years on this stuff, we don't look too much at the opposition when making these decisions. Pat's a little more of a function of how he's going. The feedback is he's going pretty well. So it's likely he'll put his hands up. But if we don't take him, you shouldn't be shocked."
The Suns need to find form, and quickly, as losing touch with the competition's finals places presents as a real possibly if their skid cannot be halted.
With clashes against fellow fancies Hawthorn and Fremantle to come, three losses on the trot could quickly become five if some hardness around clearance and contested ball cannot be recaptured; the Suns lost both metrics by factors of 11 and 16 respectively.
