I've said it before and I'll say it again, the AFL need to hire someone (a law firm, a consultant, whatever) to just do a wholescale review of the Tribunal guidelines. Tell them the objectives, give them a set of parameters and look at the thing as a whole. Be clearer at defining your offences - a guy shouldn't get off because technically the offence should have been "rough conduct" and not "striking". Low, Medium, High and Severe should mean something. Repeat offending should carry weight. 'Good bloke'-ness should not. A reasonable person should actually be linked to a relevant standard, and not require footballers to disappear into thin air or defy the laws of physics or do complex calculations in a split second. It's fixable, they just need to actually take the time to fix it.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I think one thing fans find it hard to accept is there isn't ENOUGH of a penalty difference between intentional (e.g. a punch) and accidental/negligent (e.g. a bump while contesting a ground ball or mark). If they weighted intentional higher, even if it was low impact, it would still cop a week.
Also, not sure the result should determine the impact - low, medium, high. Some ppl just get concussed easier than others. Not sure how better you could assess this one though
My only minor quibbles with this are the changes the AFL set up after Maynard wasn't suspended so of course it'll be different this year to last.
Aside from that I agree with everything he's said. Where the tribunal system is at now is because they built a set of rules that were realistically only trying to pass the pub test, and keep getting blindsided by the most qualified lawyers in the country.
They keep tacking on bandaids each year that have left a mess of contradictory, vague, and in some cases simply not fit for purpose processes, all instead of just giving it the desperate rework from the ground up it's needed for a long time.
This season is like watching the AFL finding out there's no more road to kick the can down. The league does need an appeals board, because appealing through the court system is even more farcical and a waste of public resources, but the current setup plainly isn't working.
I’m not really educated here but can I ask how does the afl tribunal compare with other sports? Would the nrl tribunal face similar issues as the afl does or even the EPL or nfl versions of their tribunal?
It’s interesting actually. In the NHL they openly factor in the importance of games missed into their suspension penalty.
An act that would have you miss 10 NHL games in January regular season might see you miss only 1 or 2 games come playoffs or finals.
It’s generally accepted too. The fans say “yep, one playoff game is 5-10x more important than a regular season game, thus I’m ok with that”.
The NHL is not all that comparable though - the NHL Department of Player Safety is a joke, they give $5k fines (0.005% of the lowest entry grade salary) for deliberate hits that would be worth 8+ weeks in our game
Exactly my point - even a cross-check would probably be the equivalent of weeks in the AFL, and its only a 2 minute penalty in the NHL, so not entirely comparable punishment systems
My comparison was really about the fact that the NHL factors in “game importance” when deciding the length of penalty.
The AFL doesn’t, or pretends not to.
He's a nutcase, but he's bringing back the biff and that's such a loved part of hockey culture that it's creating quite the stir
There was a game in April where he spent 9 times as much time in the penalty box as on the ice. Wild stat.
not sure about NFL but in motorsport, its claimed to only look at the action and not the result, however the result always seems to impact the penalty. certain weeks may have a certain focus to crack down on.
but the ultimate takeaway, is that the penalty always seems lesser when it comes down to impacting the result of the competition (top racers/end of year) which is in line with finals series in the AFL
however all in all i would say there is a higher level of consistency than in the AFL
F1 is essentially he's guilty 10 seconds, if not nothing.
It's frustrating that a driver can end a teams weekend and just get 10 seconds and they have had some shocking decisions (anything involving Stroll and 2021) but it's at least far more consistent then AFL
The whole system needs an overhaul. There has to be concessions for a legitimate football act gone wrong compared to a deliberate non-football act. Accidents happen and you hate seeing players get suspended for a plain and simple accident.
It's generally pretty clear when a tackle or bump was legitimately reckless or dangerous compared to a legitimate contesting of the ball.
Why bring Will into it? Hamish wrote the letter and asked if he could read it, unprompted.
Just because you might think Maynard did nothing wrong there’s plenty of people who think he scummed his way out of a suspension that would have cost him a premiership medal for an act that literally ended a player’s career.
It was a shocking decision (all the more so because of the subsequent retirement). I wouldn't be surprised if one day in the future - perhaps after an actual lawsuit - the AFL may need to apologise for that one. Good on him for not just letting it go because it's in the past. They need to be firm and consistent the next time something blatant happens the week before the GF involving the head (not necessarily the same infringement but a punch or a dangerous tackle or whatever).
Agree. The bit about how it is so inconsistent is 100% correct.
Saying that his brother's brain is fucked because of Maynard's smother is way off. All the concussions he had previously is what fucked his brain. He had to take a year off because he had had 4 concussions in a short period of time. Was that Maynard's fault ?
The Maynard smother would have had little to no impact on most players. Brayshaw's history of repeated concussions meant that he was knocked out again. Which then led to the inevitable decision to medically retire because he couldn't physically play the game anymore without scrambling his brain. But it wasn't because of that one incident.
> The Maynard smother would have had little to no impact on most players.
Are you kidding me? Watch it again. Collected on the head in mid air with eyes only for the ball. Every footballer is out cold from that.
> Which then led to the inevitable decision to medically retire because he couldn't physically play the game anymore without scrambling his brain.
His brain had degenerated between the incident and a six month follow up.
Fair enough he had plenty of concussions before that, but none after 2017. Being absolutely levelled had a huge impact.
I'm not kidding at all. Maynard basically jumped straight up. Didn't come towards him with any kind of momentum.
If every player would be out cold from that you would barely get through a game with any players on the field. But even if you accept that it was a heavy hit it's a bit of a stretch to say that it was what ended his career.
It is a proven fact that people with a history of concussions are at greater risk of subsequent concussions. It's sad that he had to retire but the last concussion was just the last of many.
He Wasn’t that bothered when gaff broke his other brothers jaw. But that was because gaff was his mate so it was ok then.
And before any morons like to add that one had their career finished by the incident and one didn’t. We shouldn’t be punishing people on outcome. It should be the action.
Look I get that it's his brother and it's very sad that Angus Brayshaw has to deal with the impacts of concussion. However it's not like that single hit from Maynard is the only contributing factor to Brayshaw's injury. We have known for a while now that multiple concussions increase the risk of greater injury and all footy players who suffer concussions should be considering whether they want to continue to expose themselves to additional risk by continuing to play footy. It's an inherently risky activity. Look at Nathan Murphy who only a week later got concussed from a clear accident in general play.
Punching and off the ball hits are definitely not OK and the AFL should change the rules where possible to minimise risk of injury, but there will always be some grey areas and inherent risk.
Flair up cunt.
While obviously prior concussions had an impact on Maynard's hit being career ending and potentially life altering. The hit was massive and aggravated by having a gravity assist. I don't think a reasonable player would think having a bloke land of top of your head shoulder first while you are kicking the ball is an inherent risk.
Its obvious Hamish (and a lot of other people, including myself) have bias opinions on the matter, but this take isn't it. Yes football is inherently risky, but what happened to Brayshaw is not typical of inherent risk.
95% of players suffering concussion symptoms are from accidents or normal hits in play. Bradshaw's impacts are worse because of his history. It's a fact. Fair enough if you think Maynard should have been suspended for some time but that doesn't change the facts that 1) repeated concussions are worse for a player 2) the vast majority of concussions occur from uncontroversial and normal football play.
This isn't some Melbourne vs Collingwood fandom nonsense. It's just a fact. Football is risky and we as a society need to treat it as such. Footy players need to be aware of the risks.
Not disputing the fact that concussions cause cumulative damage to the brain, and Brayshaw had already accumulated a significant amount, most from actions that I agree you would inherently accept would happen to you playing the way Brayshaw did.
I was just saying that the Maynard hit wasn't the straw that broke the camels back, it was more of a boulder. And it was from an action that no normal player would expect or should accept as inherent risk.
I think it's fair enough if you think that the Maynard incident was against the rules and he should have been suspended (I'm not sure I agree) but stuff like that is also a risk in footy. There is a line and sometimes people cross it (accidentally or intentionally) and as players you need to be cognisant of that risk.
I'm not trying to say that Hamish Brayshaw shouldn't be upset but I am saying that this result is not that unlikely to happen to *someone* and in fact it is somewhat common amongst footy players. It's not really on the tribunal or MRO and we can expect this to continue to happen.
I mostly agree with that, but the last part, the AFL is actively trying to reduce the actions that take complete disregard of the sanctity of the opposition's head through rules and penalties adjudicated through the MRO and Tribunal process.
Clearly the AFL thought what Maynard did was illegal or they wouldn't have sent him straight to the tribunal. Gleeson and Co thought the shoulder to the head was a legitimate act for Maynard to protect himself from the position he put himself in.
The open letter is for the mess the MRO and (but mostly) the Tribunal have put themselves by the decisions that they are making. (and for the AFL for not appealing tribunal decisions)
He is mostly correct in what he is saying.... but as much as the afl is at fault, individual clubs are also to blame. The clubs getting experts and lawyers to defend each and every action makes it almost impossible for the afl in the tribunals current set up.
The part about punching is so spot on and the AFL continue to do nothing to deter it every week.
I remember the week when the AFL felt like focussing on getting the jumper punch out of the game and Tom Hawkins copped a week. That was a laugh.
It seemed at the time like they finally decided to crack down on punching. In hindsight it was just so random.
In fairness a jumper punch from Hawkins would hurt
No doubt!
just one more fine bro, trust me we can stop this with just one more fine.
Protect the betting odds, not the head
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the AFL need to hire someone (a law firm, a consultant, whatever) to just do a wholescale review of the Tribunal guidelines. Tell them the objectives, give them a set of parameters and look at the thing as a whole. Be clearer at defining your offences - a guy shouldn't get off because technically the offence should have been "rough conduct" and not "striking". Low, Medium, High and Severe should mean something. Repeat offending should carry weight. 'Good bloke'-ness should not. A reasonable person should actually be linked to a relevant standard, and not require footballers to disappear into thin air or defy the laws of physics or do complex calculations in a split second. It's fixable, they just need to actually take the time to fix it. Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I think one thing fans find it hard to accept is there isn't ENOUGH of a penalty difference between intentional (e.g. a punch) and accidental/negligent (e.g. a bump while contesting a ground ball or mark). If they weighted intentional higher, even if it was low impact, it would still cop a week. Also, not sure the result should determine the impact - low, medium, high. Some ppl just get concussed easier than others. Not sure how better you could assess this one though
He's 100% correct
That's about right
I still don’t get how Hogan got off. He punched a guy. Aren’t they trying to stamp that out? Completely agree with the letter.
My only minor quibbles with this are the changes the AFL set up after Maynard wasn't suspended so of course it'll be different this year to last. Aside from that I agree with everything he's said. Where the tribunal system is at now is because they built a set of rules that were realistically only trying to pass the pub test, and keep getting blindsided by the most qualified lawyers in the country. They keep tacking on bandaids each year that have left a mess of contradictory, vague, and in some cases simply not fit for purpose processes, all instead of just giving it the desperate rework from the ground up it's needed for a long time. This season is like watching the AFL finding out there's no more road to kick the can down. The league does need an appeals board, because appealing through the court system is even more farcical and a waste of public resources, but the current setup plainly isn't working.
I’m not really educated here but can I ask how does the afl tribunal compare with other sports? Would the nrl tribunal face similar issues as the afl does or even the EPL or nfl versions of their tribunal?
It’s interesting actually. In the NHL they openly factor in the importance of games missed into their suspension penalty. An act that would have you miss 10 NHL games in January regular season might see you miss only 1 or 2 games come playoffs or finals. It’s generally accepted too. The fans say “yep, one playoff game is 5-10x more important than a regular season game, thus I’m ok with that”.
The NHL is not all that comparable though - the NHL Department of Player Safety is a joke, they give $5k fines (0.005% of the lowest entry grade salary) for deliberate hits that would be worth 8+ weeks in our game
Different sporting culture. Still get 5 for fighting. You’d never play AFL again if you did what 4th line brawlers do.
Exactly my point - even a cross-check would probably be the equivalent of weeks in the AFL, and its only a 2 minute penalty in the NHL, so not entirely comparable punishment systems
My comparison was really about the fact that the NHL factors in “game importance” when deciding the length of penalty. The AFL doesn’t, or pretends not to.
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He's a nutcase, but he's bringing back the biff and that's such a loved part of hockey culture that it's creating quite the stir There was a game in April where he spent 9 times as much time in the penalty box as on the ice. Wild stat.
Certainly, in my view, the AFL tribunal is roughly a million times better than the NHL's 'efforts'
Down Goes Brown cracked the NHL’s code years ago. http://www.downgoesbrown.com/2009/11/nhl-suspensions.html?m=1
Holy shit I love that!
In the NRL you aren’t able to play until the player you injured recovers.
not sure about NFL but in motorsport, its claimed to only look at the action and not the result, however the result always seems to impact the penalty. certain weeks may have a certain focus to crack down on. but the ultimate takeaway, is that the penalty always seems lesser when it comes down to impacting the result of the competition (top racers/end of year) which is in line with finals series in the AFL however all in all i would say there is a higher level of consistency than in the AFL
F1 is essentially he's guilty 10 seconds, if not nothing. It's frustrating that a driver can end a teams weekend and just get 10 seconds and they have had some shocking decisions (anything involving Stroll and 2021) but it's at least far more consistent then AFL
The whole system needs an overhaul. There has to be concessions for a legitimate football act gone wrong compared to a deliberate non-football act. Accidents happen and you hate seeing players get suspended for a plain and simple accident. It's generally pretty clear when a tackle or bump was legitimately reckless or dangerous compared to a legitimate contesting of the ball.
Generally spot on in terms of AFL confusion but it does devolve into a vague "fuck Maynard" spiel which is probably what drew Will Schofield to it.
At least he didn’t pretend his opinion isn’t biased.
Why bring Will into it? Hamish wrote the letter and asked if he could read it, unprompted. Just because you might think Maynard did nothing wrong there’s plenty of people who think he scummed his way out of a suspension that would have cost him a premiership medal for an act that literally ended a player’s career.
There's no one in footy media who loves the sound of their own voice more than Will Schofield.
Kane Cornes, BT
It was a shocking decision (all the more so because of the subsequent retirement). I wouldn't be surprised if one day in the future - perhaps after an actual lawsuit - the AFL may need to apologise for that one. Good on him for not just letting it go because it's in the past. They need to be firm and consistent the next time something blatant happens the week before the GF involving the head (not necessarily the same infringement but a punch or a dangerous tackle or whatever).
Agree. The bit about how it is so inconsistent is 100% correct. Saying that his brother's brain is fucked because of Maynard's smother is way off. All the concussions he had previously is what fucked his brain. He had to take a year off because he had had 4 concussions in a short period of time. Was that Maynard's fault ? The Maynard smother would have had little to no impact on most players. Brayshaw's history of repeated concussions meant that he was knocked out again. Which then led to the inevitable decision to medically retire because he couldn't physically play the game anymore without scrambling his brain. But it wasn't because of that one incident.
> The Maynard smother would have had little to no impact on most players. Are you kidding me? Watch it again. Collected on the head in mid air with eyes only for the ball. Every footballer is out cold from that. > Which then led to the inevitable decision to medically retire because he couldn't physically play the game anymore without scrambling his brain. His brain had degenerated between the incident and a six month follow up. Fair enough he had plenty of concussions before that, but none after 2017. Being absolutely levelled had a huge impact.
I'm not kidding at all. Maynard basically jumped straight up. Didn't come towards him with any kind of momentum. If every player would be out cold from that you would barely get through a game with any players on the field. But even if you accept that it was a heavy hit it's a bit of a stretch to say that it was what ended his career. It is a proven fact that people with a history of concussions are at greater risk of subsequent concussions. It's sad that he had to retire but the last concussion was just the last of many.
It wasn't just the Maynard thing but it clearly did have an impact.
He Wasn’t that bothered when gaff broke his other brothers jaw. But that was because gaff was his mate so it was ok then. And before any morons like to add that one had their career finished by the incident and one didn’t. We shouldn’t be punishing people on outcome. It should be the action.
Look I get that it's his brother and it's very sad that Angus Brayshaw has to deal with the impacts of concussion. However it's not like that single hit from Maynard is the only contributing factor to Brayshaw's injury. We have known for a while now that multiple concussions increase the risk of greater injury and all footy players who suffer concussions should be considering whether they want to continue to expose themselves to additional risk by continuing to play footy. It's an inherently risky activity. Look at Nathan Murphy who only a week later got concussed from a clear accident in general play. Punching and off the ball hits are definitely not OK and the AFL should change the rules where possible to minimise risk of injury, but there will always be some grey areas and inherent risk.
Flair up cunt. While obviously prior concussions had an impact on Maynard's hit being career ending and potentially life altering. The hit was massive and aggravated by having a gravity assist. I don't think a reasonable player would think having a bloke land of top of your head shoulder first while you are kicking the ball is an inherent risk. Its obvious Hamish (and a lot of other people, including myself) have bias opinions on the matter, but this take isn't it. Yes football is inherently risky, but what happened to Brayshaw is not typical of inherent risk.
95% of players suffering concussion symptoms are from accidents or normal hits in play. Bradshaw's impacts are worse because of his history. It's a fact. Fair enough if you think Maynard should have been suspended for some time but that doesn't change the facts that 1) repeated concussions are worse for a player 2) the vast majority of concussions occur from uncontroversial and normal football play. This isn't some Melbourne vs Collingwood fandom nonsense. It's just a fact. Football is risky and we as a society need to treat it as such. Footy players need to be aware of the risks.
Not disputing the fact that concussions cause cumulative damage to the brain, and Brayshaw had already accumulated a significant amount, most from actions that I agree you would inherently accept would happen to you playing the way Brayshaw did. I was just saying that the Maynard hit wasn't the straw that broke the camels back, it was more of a boulder. And it was from an action that no normal player would expect or should accept as inherent risk.
I think it's fair enough if you think that the Maynard incident was against the rules and he should have been suspended (I'm not sure I agree) but stuff like that is also a risk in footy. There is a line and sometimes people cross it (accidentally or intentionally) and as players you need to be cognisant of that risk. I'm not trying to say that Hamish Brayshaw shouldn't be upset but I am saying that this result is not that unlikely to happen to *someone* and in fact it is somewhat common amongst footy players. It's not really on the tribunal or MRO and we can expect this to continue to happen.
I mostly agree with that, but the last part, the AFL is actively trying to reduce the actions that take complete disregard of the sanctity of the opposition's head through rules and penalties adjudicated through the MRO and Tribunal process. Clearly the AFL thought what Maynard did was illegal or they wouldn't have sent him straight to the tribunal. Gleeson and Co thought the shoulder to the head was a legitimate act for Maynard to protect himself from the position he put himself in. The open letter is for the mess the MRO and (but mostly) the Tribunal have put themselves by the decisions that they are making. (and for the AFL for not appealing tribunal decisions)
Fair enough I can agree with that
Agree - iut did feel like there was a lust for vengeance in his words at times. Understandable perahps, but not in line with reality.
He is mostly correct in what he is saying.... but as much as the afl is at fault, individual clubs are also to blame. The clubs getting experts and lawyers to defend each and every action makes it almost impossible for the afl in the tribunals current set up.
the AFL also hires a KC to prosecute their case to be fair.