A farce, according to the wisdom of Wikipedia, is “a comedy which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations”. That is exactly what the AFL tribunal system has become. You only have to look back as far as this week to see the ridiculousness of their decisions. Franklin was suspended for one match because he made head high contact to Akermanis, who had the ball and Franklin did everything he could not to make the contact any worse than it was. Contrast that to a NAB Challenge match where Colin Sylvia was cleaned up by a head-high bump, which broke his jaw. Sylvia obviously didn’t see Kennedy coming for him and wasn’t expecting contact. Sylvia is only set to play this week, an injury that has lasted a whole month. Kennedy wasn’t even banned from playing for one moment or receive any points.
Franklin’s action were incidental and made impact to Aker. Kennedy ran 15 meters to clean Sylvia up. The difference in the intent and outcome couldn’t be more polarised. But their sentences are the wrong way around for logic. You could make a case that Franklin did deserve the ban, but they Kennedy should have been set aside at least for a week, probably more.
Even more curious in all of this is that the AFL would not release tapes it had of the Sylvia/Kennedy incident. Why on earth would they do that? What are the AFL playing at? I can think of some theories and none of them serve the game or the players any good.
These situations don’t stand alone. David Hille took out Bartel with his elbows apparently going for a mark, which is fine, apparently. Hawthorn’s Osborne smashed in to the head of Joel Selwood in round 2 and receive a one match ban.
The result of all these inconsistent decisions is that players, clubs, coaches and fans have no idea what the rules are. They seemed to be changed at least monthly with no consultation, consideration or communication. The tribunal system is not acheiving its goals because of this.
Nick Maxwell has no idea what the rules are and is trying to take the bump out of his game because of it. It’s pretty impossible to not bump in to someone when you are trying to tackle them and running full speed at them. Your only two options are bump or tackle. If you tackle them when they don’t have the ball it will be a free down field. If you bump them fairly then nothing happens. If you bump them and get them slightly high they get a free kick but does the bumper get rubbed out? I’m not sure. I’d like to know if anybody is sure.
I said at the start of the article that the tribunal system was a farce, it is, except I’m not laughing.
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[...] game but the Tigers will be looking to make a statement through adversity. Melbourne welcome back Colin Sylvia after a month out with a broken jaw. Melbourne are definitely the form side and have a far better defense than the Tigers, which should [...]
“David Hille took out Bartel with his elbows apparently going for a mark,…” I’d take issue with the elbows element of this statement — it’s not supported by the video evidence. The elbow is released after contact with Bartel.
It would be wonderful if everything was equally weighted every time. I make the same call for umpires to be consistent every week. Life would be so much more predictable — and boring.
Unfortunately the equivalences you cite are simply not equivalent. Every one of them is its own individual microcosm. Trying to draw equivalence, especially between two incidents where you don’t have definitive footage of one of them, is an exercise in futility. The mere fact of Sylvia’s broken jaw is not evidence to ‘hang’ Kennedy and for a “fiercely logical” person to suggest it . . .
You’ll recall, I hope, that the AFL introduced the scales for weighting aspects of reportable offences — low, medium and high impact, for instance — and a points system to determine penalties to take some of the arbitrariness out of the tribunal’s judgments. Now we’re arguing over the assessment of an action as medium vs high. Will there be an end to the criticism short of supporters dragging an opposition player to the gibbet for some imagined ‘crime’?
I’m not suggesting that Kennedy be hung at all. I clearly state that he should have got at least a week as per the AFL regulations. The Kennedy offence was totally a reportable offence. It was high contact and was at the very least negligent.
I’m not sure where you are going with the imagined crime bit. I don’t see how I imagined any of this.
As a side note; I was at the game at Casey Fields where Sylvia got collected. I was watching the play and I missed the bump, that’s how far off the ball it was and how far off Kennedy had come from.
The Hille one is an interesting one, not sure what should have happened there, and that’s kinda the point.
I think the matrix that they are using doesn’t really work all the time.
I personally think the Tribunal goes to hard on soft incidents and then doesn’t remain consistent. Lets take firstly the fact the AFL missed the contact with an umpire in the St Kilda and Collingwood game. There is video of the incident yet the AFL missed it what is the point of the video if things are missed, this is not club football. Ashley McGrath was involved in a very Judd like incident and received only 1 match …. go figure. The David Hille incident has been discussed and presonally i believe he was very lucky given his proximity to the contest and the way he attacked the man. The Colin Sylvia incident astounds me if their is video that shows something untoward then why has no action been taken. I dont think anyone is looking to ‘HANG’ Kennedy but Jaws also don;t just break. The system is very hard to understand.
the shaw v hayes case is perfect example of how the match review panel and the tribunal pick and chose scapegoats…
with regards to shaw: “AFL legal counsel Jeff Gleeson said Shaw’s contact was not malicious. “But that’s not the point, a player must not make contact intentionally with an umpire,” Gleeson said. ”
shaw gets 1 week.
with regards to hayes: “Hayes was officially cleared after the panel looked at the video and also spoke to Ryan. The fact Ryan had no issue was Hayes helped his cause, whereas Vozzo made it clear last year that he found Shaw’s actions threatening.”
hayes gets nothing.
god help franklin if he ever touches an umpire, he’ll get life…
that said, i somehow feel like one of those guys who goes to see a james bond movie, then complains because its not realistic… “oh come on man, sif he can dodge bullets like that…”
dont try and apply rules of everyday logic, reason and common sense to the tribunal, just let it be….
its like searching for the meaning of life, the point is: these is no meaning….
Read about the pointa system. Leigh Matthews would’ve got 2 weeks for breaking the jaw of Neville Bruns. Trengrove gets 3 weeks yet Dangerfield got “turfed” in a 3 way tackle against the Dees at the ‘G & all 3 never got looked at.
Adam Goodes got away with striking Ports Matt Thomas in 2008. Thoams tackled Goodes, Goddes swung an elbow, got off after claiming the SCG turf knocked out Thomas.
Bring back the old system.