North Melbourne are fuming after the free kicks and two controversial decisions went badly against them in their one-point AFL loss to the Western Bulldogs.
Coach Brad Scott bit his tongue in the wake of Saturday night's near-miss at Etihad Stadium, where they came back from 26 points down in the last quarter.
Not wanting to risk a fine, he chose his words carefully when asked about the umpiring but spoke of the Kangaroos' frustrations.
The free kick count favoured the Bulldogs 15-2 in the second quarter.
It was 16-4 at halftime and 26-13 for the game.
Kangaroos forward Ben Brown thought he'd put them ahead when he marked and then played on to kick a goal late in the last quarter.
But a free kick was paid against teammate Mason Wood for a shepherd as Brown took his mark.
Not only was the goal disallowed, a 50m penalty was paid against North because Brown had played on after the free was paid.
North's Shaun Higgins then kicked a behind to level the scores but Bulldogs forward Jake Stringer quickly kicked another and it was the last score of the match.
The Kangaroos were also denied a potential goal late in the third term.
An umpire called play on against Higgins because he had taken too long to have his set shot.
Higgins clearly did not hear the play-on call and Jake Stringer mowed him down in a tackle.
"We can't talk about it - you can talk about it and I can just sit here and say I can't talk about it,"' Scott said post-match when asked about the umpiring.
Scott said he was proud his players did not let frustrations affect their play in the second half, saying the free kicks were not mentioned at halftime.
"I'm not telling you that you're not frustrated at certain times - obviously everyone associated with North Melbourne were frustrated at certain times in the first half in particular," Scott said.
"But what are you going to do about it?"
Scott said he could understand the feelings of North fans and they would demand answers.
"But unfortunately I can't give them to them - that's for others to talk about and to get some feedback," he said.
"The AFL will look at it and tell them they got it all right and we move on ... that's a joke."
The AFL fined Scott heavily last year for accusing the umpires of deliberately not paying free kicks to North forward Lindsay Thomas, a claim he quickly retracted.
The league takes a dim view of coaches criticising umpires and earlier this month Hawthorn's Alastair Clarkson was hit with a $20,000 penalty, with $15,000 of it suspended.
Scott called for common sense around umpires calling play-on with set shots, saying the players might not hear them.
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