Whately’s job is to pontificate at length any view of the AFL to give it a veneer of wisdom or intelligence. This comes easy for him as his articulate nature makes him appear an intellectual giant amongst most of his peers, particularly Robbo. He’s there to play the role of disappointed parent admonishing a child, especially if that child happens to be wearing red and black.
There’s no way any football fan with functioning eyes can look at the Oliver example and deem that less of a “potential for injury” than what Merrett has been suspended for.
The other angle they showed of the Oliver one shows that his head doesn’t hit the ground. The actions bad but it would have been easy to argue the impact as there was none.
If the direction things are heading is underpinned (partly or largely) by AFL’s legal concerns around liability etc - Surely there has to be informed consent and related agreements signed by professional players regarding potential injury. Historical cases and claims aside, is the AFL not sufficiently covered, indemnified, insured against potential claims? I mean, people get seriously injured, sometimes killed, in many other professional sports. It has to be manageable without removing fundamental elements of the game.
And that’s at least half of the problem. They can’t conceive of the idea that many of the tackles which end in a player being brought to the ground is because the umpires fail to make a timely decision.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve thought, just blow the whistle, when a player has the ball pinned to him or held on to him by the tackler, yet the umpires continue to wait. Already this year there have been a number of occasions when the players just stop and look at the umpire actually forcing him to blow the whistle for a stoppage.
And why did the umpire wait so long to pay the free against Merrett? He actually paid it for the high tackle, not a dangerous tackle I believe.
I kinda answered that in post. And also mentioned i wished no disrespect to occasion. Just thought an impactful statemnt could be made, yep, probavly wrong game to do it, but just haopened on eve of Anzac game. Im over it now, like everyone else just upset at time game being destroyed and was a thought bubble that popped up. They not always good ones, im aware of that!
said no desrespect meant to occasion, the sentiment was to send a message , just happened timing was eve of Anzac Day. Yep, hindsight me bad, do it the following week, or not, just a thought in the middle of the circus at the time
as drapersmullet said above (sadly) it’s not about potential for injury, it is now about “potential for concussion” .
which is odd cos the oliver incident still has the potential to cause concussion issues, even if his head doesn’t hit the ground.
there’s no confusion around the issue, there is merely inconsistency in their own application of their own laws, as with everything the afl does.
the saints players cops game cos he concussed someone. the gold coast player didn’t get suspended cos he didn’t concuss guelfi.
merrett and all the other instances the head “hits the ground” which they perceive to be bad in relation to concussions (neglecting any impact in general can seemingly be a contributing factor)
whereas if the head doesn’t hit the ground they view it as not a concussion issue hence they don’t care.
it’ not a injury in general issue, again it’s a concussion only interpretation specifically related to head knocks.
which ironically shows the afl still don’t understand the concept of how players can have concussion injuries and issues.
their heads don’t need to have impact for it to occur.
So if a player is tackled and their head hits the ground and they are not concussed, then there was no potential for concussion, otherwise they would have been concussed.
Clearly the tackler executed the tackle in a way that ensured there was insufficient force to cause concussion.
In the Oliver case, if the head did hit the ground was their sufficient force to cause concussion? Bloody oath.
So it’s kind of crazy … because if the head hits the ground and there is no concussion, then how could there be potential for concussion, because the event actually happened and there was none.
Potential suggests … possibility … what if.
So in Merrets case …. What if …… his head hit the ground ?
It did and there was no concussion.
Maybe there was potential if he had tackled him with more vigour, such as Oliver did, but that would be a completely different tackle.
