Sport

Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass

23 Sept 2026 12:57 AEST Summary

From the report

Umpire Hayden Meyer said he was taken aback when two Hawthorn players abused him post game as he was announced as one of the four grand final field umpires for Saturday.

This is a summary. The indicators are not. The scores were measured over this summary alone, which is less of the article than we would like and makes them less certain.

Indicators

Niral Score 1.8 mundaneloaded

None in this text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

players2

Sentiment -0.3 hostilefavourable Sourcing 79 unattributednamed sources Mood 13.9 sorrowjoyful

5 read zero: political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert

Measurements of how this article is written, not of whether it is correct. How each one is measured.

Measured on The Sydney Morning Herald’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How outlets headlined it

Each outlet's own headline. ~~Struck through~~: the loaded words our version leaves out. Plainest first.

The Sydney Morning Herald Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass plain
The West Australian AFL umpire felt 'threatened, intimidated' by Hawks duo plain

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by WAtoday, The Age, Brisbane Times, The West Australian. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
The Sydney Morning Heraldas they published this story	1.8

Also reported by

6 Australian outlets reported this story. These are the ones we do not read; their headlines are matched to this one automatically, so an occasional match may be a different story.

AFL umpire felt threatened , intimidated by Hawks duo easternriverinachronicle.com.au

Coverage from The GDELT Project.

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The same event elsewhere

5 other outlets filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

WAtoday Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass Niral 1.8 political 0 The Age Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass Niral 1.8 political 0 Brisbane Times Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass Niral 1.8 political 0 WAtoday Umpire felt threatened by Hawks players’ abuse, reveals phone call with Barrass Niral 1.8 political 0 The West Australian AFL umpire felt 'threatened, intimidated' by Hawks duo Niral 5.9 political 0