Originally Posted by
liz
There was an incident a few years ago when Buddy was in possession and being tackled and moved his elbow (at some velocity), catching the tackler high (and concussing him, IIRC). Some in the media were calling for his head; others suggested that when you're in possession, you have the right to manoeuvre and to protect yourself. The MRP determined that Buddy didn't have a case to answer.
The Lynch incident arose in similar circumstances, and the lack of finding against him is consistent with the way the game has been adjudicated over recent years.
The starting premise in today's game is that we want to protect players by reducing head high contact. However, given the 360 degree and aerial nature of the game, plus the speed at which it is played, eliminating all head high contact means compromises need to be made. The game needs to decide which elements where head high contact is possible (or likely) are so integral to the game that they can't be removed, and which can. Those posts are moving over time.
It wasn't so long ago (well, maybe a decade or so) that we were in uproar when Mumford was suspended for a tackle that drove his opponent's head into the ground. I think he was the first player to be suspended for such an action. Now we are pretty used to players being suspended for such actions, albeit always accompanied by some mumblings about how tackling is just part of the game.
Bumps used to be celebrated. Often brutal ones. Byron Pickett was the master of them. Part of the Legend of Brett Kirk is the bump that Pickett laid on him in the 2003 QF, from which he staggered to his feet, went back into the fray, and was instrumental in helping the Swans hang on against a desperate Port side clawing back the deficit. In today's game, Kirk would be taken from the ground for at least 20 minutes, probably not to return at all.
Those who administer the game have made the call that it is possible to bump, shepherd, tackle without causing head high contact to the opposition, and thus you can reduce the risk of head high contact to players without eliminating those elements from the sport. On the other hand, it is pretty much impossible to eliminate incidental head high contact in marking contests , particularly aerial ones, without fundamentally changing the game. So "the game" has determined that such head high contact has to be accepted. At least for now.
Those elbows by players seem to - at the moment - sit in that area of what can't easily be eliminated from the game, unless we want to deny the right of a player to try and break a tackle or even to try and dispose of the ball. The video of the Lynch incident available on the AFL site isn't great. It just shows the incident as it happened from a wide-pan camera. There's no replay or close up vision (though I think I saw something on the footy news over the weekend). From the vision on the AFL site, it doesn't look as if Lynch raised his arm high, or swung it particularly hard. Even from what I can recall of better vision, the contact does look accidental.
Rowbottom's high contact on Merrett was, I am sure, also accidental, but different types of footy action are adjudicated differently. For now, the Lynch action has pretty consistently been deemed to be reasonable, and the Rowbottom one not correctly executed and thus not reasonable. Maybe, in time, we will see the AFL determine that a player in possession has a duty of care for any contact made to a tackler, but for now that is not the case.
If every slightly clumsy act by a player in possession were deemed reportable / suspendable, I think Buddy would have had several enforced holidays over the last few years.
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