Will be interesting to see what Sam Wicks from Sydney gets for his incident last night. He jumped off the ground, hit the Brissie guy (Ryan Lester) late with a forearm to the face. Immediate report, which was nice to see rather than rely on MRP, and Lester has to leave the field for attention. There is no situation of ball in dispute and no way for the Brisbane player to defend. I’ll bet my left testicle that he won’t get a longer sentence than Mansell and may get less.
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Rhyan Mansell welcome to Tigerland
- Thread starter MB78
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A lot of what you say is very reasonable and the AFL definitely needs to provide proper guidelines for players with regards to how they should approach contests. On reflection, because of the short reaction time involved, his penalty should have been 1 or 2 weeks, not 3. Running in from the side players now have a duty of care to protect the head of an opponent bending over to gather the ball. I understand all the angst from posters who are dismayed at the way our game has changed but we should think about the tragic lives of Danny Frawley and Shane Tuck and the many others who have suffered brain injury as a result of playing the game they loved.
Last night I was thinking about that type of collision with two players coming at the ball from opposite directions. What does the AFL expect them to do? Ideally both could reduce speed and bump hip to hip with no head/shoulder involvement but is that reasonable to expect? What if one slows down and the other charges through, grabs the ball and goals? I honestly don't know the answer and still protect the heads of the players involved. The AFL definitely needs to provide proper guidelines for players with regards to how they should approach contests. On reflection, because of the short reaction time involved, his penalty should have been 1 or 2 weeks, not 3. Running in from the side players now have a duty of care to protect the head of an opponent bending over to gather the ball. I understand all the angst from posters who are dismayed at the way our game has changed but we should think about the tragic lives of Danny Frawley and Shane Tuck and the many others, even suburban players, who have suffered brain injury as a result of playing the game they loved.
It was clearly reportable but wasn’t major impact so I suspect that is right.
That was clearly reportable in any era but given consequence seems to outweigh intent now that’s the way it will be adjudicated
I think the biggest problem is that the current MRO sanction listing isn't fit for purpose.
It puts equal weight essentially on the impact and the action, when the action needs to be penalised more if they actually want to stamp out the more dangerous actions. Of the 4 actions (Pickett, De goey, Mansell and Wicks), Mansells was the only 1 that was in play, Mansells was the only one that was largely unavoidable, yet he received the joint heaviest penalty (there is 0% chance that Wicks gets 3 weeks).
Off the ball bumps to the head, simply need to factor in some sort of weighting over instances that occur directly in the contest, yet Christian has basically ruled that all bumps are regarded as careless, unless they are miles off the ball. Its why he pretty much reserves the intentional grading almost exclusively for strikes.
Here’s a genuine question for anyone to answer.
What if it’s 2 teammates that collide and one gets concussed, does the non concussed teammate get cited?
Lot to unpack there.
What colour were the jumpers?
Is one of them a Brownlow favourite?
Who’s the umpire?
Is the pie warmer turned on?
So many questions, but we can trust the AFL to sort it out fairly and consistently
Major problem is nothing is ever graded as intentional.
If it was you would get closer to the correct results.
If you choose to bump it should be intentional.
If you choose to elbow is should be intentional.
The swans one will be careless even though he meant to hit him with his forearm / Elbow. The fact that he got him high shouldn't be oh he didn't mean it therefore careless.
It would add 1-2 weeks to most of these and discourage the wrong acts
If it was you would get closer to the correct results.
If you choose to bump it should be intentional.
If you choose to elbow is should be intentional.
The swans one will be careless even though he meant to hit him with his forearm / Elbow. The fact that he got him high shouldn't be oh he didn't mean it therefore careless.
It would add 1-2 weeks to most of these and discourage the wrong acts
Yeah, a lot of the hits graded careless are ridiculous- De Goey intentionally bumped the WEagle, but somehow it wasn't intentional, but careless.
Interesting isn't it, the AFL are too scared to say that a player has the intent to bump, strike, elbow etc. So they won't put that as part of the MRO/P stipulations,.
But they then say in the match day rules that a player can show "insufficient intent" to keep the ball in play.
As usual whatever suits their particular narrative at any given time.
Consistent inconsistency.
Nah, we'll be ahead of the game, because the game will continue to head further in this direction. This isn't an arbitrary AFL-driven agenda. This is concussion research finally catching up with the AFL after a decade of brushing it aside.
The sooner we learn how to get ahead of the curve, the better. This isn't rule of the week.
I hope you don't think that my post reflects that either myself or those who agree are not equally concerned about these earlier tragedies. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But as a result of the Mansell decision the present situation has become that the only real matter that MRV and Appeal tribunal must consider is whether someone has suffered a head injury, as a result of a bumping or bracing action, or like, by an opponent.
And it doesn't matter whether the opponent in this case Mansell, acted carelessly or not. The penalty for such action, according to the present rules, is 3 weeks not the one or two or two, that you suggest may be OK.
The result is a three week penalty imposed on an emerging First Nations footballer, (which itself bares an unhappy likeness to our court room culture generally), - and on any standard is quite excessive and was not the intention of the Commission, when the rules were introduced.
Instead, if bumping or bracing was to be an offence without regard to the issue carelessness (and the players level of fault), I'd suggest that the AFL should have followed a process and consulted with the clubs before the Commission made a final decision.
That did not occur in this instance, I'd suggest because of the anticipated media and public reaction, which has led the AFL to back door its approach.
So the present Director of Football has been made the fall guy and orchestrated a removal of what has previously been an essential element of the offence, (the requirement that the offender is shown to have acted carelessly), this without regard to the views of other stakeholders. Her approach I must say has become rather typical of those she works with and represents a bad start for our new CEO, and more of the same from his best mate.
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Absolutely nailed it Poshy.
Unfortunately AFLHQ in their all encompassing wisdom once again, have neither the integrity or courage to set up a system that can judge and adjudicate any of these varying instances clearly. They simply grab the largest sledge hammer they can find and start smashing peanuts, walnuts and coconuts with gay abandon. Justifying themselves with the simplification that they are all nuts so they can all be dealt with exactly the same.
Interested to see at the Sicily hearing to night, the appeal was dismissed with the appeal board again rejecting an argument from Sicily that the Appeal tribunal below hadn't made a finding that he had acted carelessly.
The appellants counsel pointed out that the tribunal hadn't asked whether Sicily had been 'negligent' or 'reckless' or 'unreasonable'.
The AFL's counsel, picking up on what the Board chairman said in the Mansell case, in reply simply offered that the tribunal was made up of experienced past players, and in response the Appeal board, full of apology, said that was enough, and gave no more attention to the requirement of carelessness than that.
Anyone interested in what this all means for the game might take another look at the posts above on the Mansell hearing, and particularly at the AFL'S position discussed at post 1516.
The appellants counsel pointed out that the tribunal hadn't asked whether Sicily had been 'negligent' or 'reckless' or 'unreasonable'.
The AFL's counsel, picking up on what the Board chairman said in the Mansell case, in reply simply offered that the tribunal was made up of experienced past players, and in response the Appeal board, full of apology, said that was enough, and gave no more attention to the requirement of carelessness than that.
Anyone interested in what this all means for the game might take another look at the posts above on the Mansell hearing, and particularly at the AFL'S position discussed at post 1516.
Agree it is part of the problem that the current approach, (which in the Mansell case and now the Sicily case, ignore the requirement that negligence be found), has created.
This change in the rules has been carried out by in a very unusual manner by the AFL, which has created unfairness for Mansell and Sicily in particular, and uncertainty for all players and coaches as to what is acceptable in the future.
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Mansell must be scratching his head this morning wondering what is the difference between his & Rohan's incidents? Both were accidental collisions based on millisecond decisions. Mansell though is missing 3 weeks. Farcical.
