the 'buddy' franklin report & suspension

[JK]

CP, from what I have heard in interviews they are ultra-cautious about head and neck injuries. It's become a no-go zone - even for accidental contact. Same thing happenning in contact sports around the world.

I guess their insurers and risk advisors are partly to blame. There's huge financial implications if someone suffers a serious injury and the AFL is held responsible because their rules of the game aren't adequate. Plus the bad publicity, etc.

It's a contentious one, we just have to hope future admininstrators don't let the spirit of the game disappear in their push to keep it "safe".

All I was trying to say is that there's only been 2 incidents that have given us fans cause for grief over the whole year at the same time as there's been a bunch of incidents let go. So maybe there's still hope.

No worries mate, I understand (I think) where they are coming from, just don't agree with it ... I reckon there's been more than 2 incidents, but you generally just roll your eyes and let them go, but every now and then you get one that really really sticks in your guts, like this one.

I know Rugby has banned the spear tackle etc, but surely that game is still well and truly open to serious injury, how do they manage to retain the spirit of their game?

How do the lower leagues like the SANFL get away with it?

I don't know what the answer is with regard to the legalities, but I hate it, because like it or not the AFL is always going to influence all levels of football.

[Interceptor]

Thought this was a pretty reasonable article:

Appeals board verdict signals the end of the bump

Martin Blake | August 28, 2009

A NOTE for posterity: the bump finally died at 7.55 last night, upon the finding of the AFL appeals board after 140 minutes of legal argument and just five minutes of deliberation.

Peter O'Callaghan, QC, was charged with delivering the verdict, not only upon Lance Franklin, but upon a time-honoured skill of Australian football. There was not even a wake.

When O'Callaghan dismissed all three of the grounds of appeal put up by Hawthorn on behalf of Franklin, it can only have meant that the bump becomes an unnecessary risk for a player. Yet it was never outlawed by the AFL, and not one of the team of spruikers who work down at AFL headquarters was required to trot out a press release to say it was so. It has been done by stealth.

When the league introduced the appendix to its rough conduct rules in February after the Nick Maxwell case, it was not immediately obvious how sweeping the change would be. But it is now.

Franklin is stiff. When he knocked out Ben Cousins at the MCG last Saturday, he performed a bump that was correct in every tenet of the way the game has been played for more than a century. But in the new world, he should have tackled Cousins. If the message was not clear before, then it is staring players in the face now. No player travelling at high speed and bumping can guarantee that there will be no high contact to his opponent.

Hawthorn tried valiantly. Franklin's counsel, David Denton, spent more than an hour arguing unsuccessfully that the charge had been wrongly framed. This was dismissed in a second or two. Denton argued that the jury had been misdirected on Tuesday night. It was thrown out. Finally, he presented a case that the verdict of the tribunal had been perverse and unfair. All three arguments fell on deaf ears.

This was not a malicious act by Franklin. There remains a feeling that the rule was not meant for cases like this, which is why Hawthorn now intends confronting the league about it.

But people who have raged about the tribunal and the match review panel this week are missing the point. The rule, set down in February after the Maxwell case, is crystal clear. You can't blame the match review panel and the tribunal for applying it to this case. They were just doing their job. And three sets of people - the match review panel, the tribunal and the appeals board - all felt this way.

What the ''killing the game'' advocates ought to be focusing upon is that the rule was changed in an instant after Maxwell was reprieved of his big hit on West Coast's Patrick McGinnity in February, without reference to the laws of the game panel, the very group set up to tinker with the rules where required. Why that happened has not been fully explained.

The issue is the law or ''deeming provision'', which instructs the match review panel and the tribunal to disregard whether a bump is reasonable or unreasonable, and merely focus on the result of the impact, and whether a player had another option. The Franklin case suggests that the rule has been framed too tightly. Perhaps it is time to get the lawyers in again.

People will now continue to say that the game has gone soft, but this is overly emotive. They should go to a club medical room after a game, or sit by the boundary to hear the clashes of hard, fit bodies. They should count how many players head off for surgery next week to repair mangled joints in the off-season. They should take a peek at a video of a 1970s game and watch the players skirt around each other, tossing the ball in front so they cannot be tackled.

Cousins twisted like a rag doll when he was hit. As he lay on the ground, Franklin fell on to his back, gathered the ball and fired off a handball. The umpire did not even provide the cold comfort of a free kick, and play simply moved on around Cousins' fallen body. Don't suggest the game's gone soft.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/clubs/hawthorn/end-of-the-bump/2009/08/27/1251001987889.html

[Adelaide Hawk]

Buddy was a victim of the big man sydrome. Had Cousins delivered the bump and Franklin received it, all people would be saying was "what a great bump from the little fella", and certainly no report would have been made by the MRC. Whether we like it or not, society has standards for some, and standards for others, just as the AFL has rules for some and rules for others. Never expect equality, there is no such animal.

Bigger guys have been putting up with this crap for years. If you try to lay a tackle on a smaller player, they just duck underneath and get the free for a high tackle, and the big guy is the villain. Cousins went to duck under what he thought was going to be a Franklin tackle, but he copped a bump instead, and paid the price. It's time ALL facts were considered by tribunals, not just those that suit their agenda.

According to the MRC, there are no such things as accidents, only malicious acts of intent ... which of course is palpable nonsense.

[Wedgie]

Makes you wonder what would happen if 2 blokes ran into each other recklessly, had a head collision and knocked each other out. Would they both be reported and suspended?

Just for the record Ive seen a lot stupider and softer incidents get suspensions in the SANFL as recently as last year. Its certainly not a precedent or confined to the AFL, in fact the AFL tribunal is the only one I can predict with any consistency.

[Adelaide Hawk]

Thought this was a pretty reasonable article:

Appeals board verdict signals the end of the bump

Martin Blake | August 28, 2009

Cousins twisted like a rag doll when he was hit. As he lay on the ground, Franklin fell on to his back, gathered the ball and fired off a handball. The umpire did not even provide the cold comfort of a free kick, and play simply moved on around Cousins' fallen body. Don't suggest the game's gone soft.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/clubs/hawthorn/end-of-the-bump/2009/08/27/1251001987889.html

Franklin fell on to his back? Whereas I didn't mind the rest of the article, I suggest Martin Blake take another look at the incident. Apart from the initial bump, Franklin made no other contact with Cousins.

[aceman]

Thought this was a pretty reasonable article:

Appeals board verdict signals the end of the bump

Martin Blake | August 28, 2009

Cousins twisted like a rag doll when he was hit. As he lay on the ground, Franklin fell on to his back, gathered the ball and fired off a handball. The umpire did not even provide the cold comfort of a free kick, and play simply moved on around Cousins' fallen body. Don't suggest the game's gone soft.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/clubs/hawthorn/end-of-the-bump/2009/08/27/1251001987889.html

Franklin fell on to his back? Whereas I didn't mind the rest of the article, I suggest Martin Blake take another look at the incident. Apart from the initial bump, Franklin made no other contact with Cousins.

They don't make "rag dolls" like they used to!
They are dismantling our great game piece by piece, how in the hell are we going to stop the rot?

[Booney]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

[hawkseye]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

Im going to Elizabeth Sat night and amateurs during the day....So if you mean the Netball/AFL then no

[Bum Crack]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

I sure as hell will be.

[Gingernuts]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

I'm going to hide under my bed in the foetal position and wait for football arrmageddon to arrive, it is the end of the world as we know it after all.

[Wedgie]

Thought this was a pretty reasonable article:

Appeals board verdict signals the end of the bump

Martin Blake | August 28, 2009

Cousins twisted like a rag doll when he was hit. As he lay on the ground, Franklin fell on to his back, gathered the ball and fired off a handball. The umpire did not even provide the cold comfort of a free kick, and play simply moved on around Cousins' fallen body. Don't suggest the game's gone soft.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/clubs/hawthorn/end-of-the-bump/2009/08/27/1251001987889.html

Franklin fell on to his back? Whereas I didn't mind the rest of the article, I suggest Martin Blake take another look at the incident. Apart from the initial bump, Franklin made no other contact with Cousins.

There was definately secondary contact although it was incidental (and nothing in it), Buddy when going for the ball fell on top of Cousins arm and then got pushed onto Cousins back. Its not much but Blake is right in that there was secondary contact, mind you I don't see any need to mention it.

[Booney]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

Im going to Elizabeth Sat night and amateurs during the day....So if you mean the Netball/AFL then no

Might want to change your avatar then.

[Rik E Boy]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

Im going to Elizabeth Sat night and amateurs during the day....So if you mean the Netball/AFL then no

Might want to change your avatar then.

It's fecking carp so he should change it anyway. Bloody Bradburys.....

regards,

REB

[hawkseye]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

Im going to Elizabeth Sat night and amateurs during the day....So if you mean the Netball/AFL then no

Might want to change your avatar then.

Why would i do that? There is no coverage of the Hawks tomorrow so i cant watch it.

[dedja]

Booney, you're like a dog with a bone at the moment ... c'mon, don't tell me you didn't get a tad annoyed when Byron Pickett had his bump umpired (actually, suspended) out of the game?

[rod_rooster]

Well I guess nobody will be watching any of the footy this weekend then?

Im going to Elizabeth Sat night and amateurs during the day....So if you mean the Netball/AFL then no

Might want to change your avatar then.

It's fecking carp so he should change it anyway. Bloody Bradburys.....

regards,

REB

Lol, here we go with the Bradbury rubbish again. I'd much prefer my club to win GF's it shouldn't than lose ones it should.

[Jabber]

Ah ok, so a forum isn't a place where you can express concerns on where the game - our game - is heading?

Duly noted, only positive discussion from now ... Mr Anderson is doing a fantastic job btw, hopefully the AFL appoints even more lawyers to their positions of power.

Is it just this incident that has aroused* your suspicions as to where the game is headed? Cmon mate, it has been going down this path for years. Dont get me wrong, I love the "bump" but the head has been protected for years now, nothing new about that. Fact is Buddy hit Cousins in the head, no disputing that is there?

So what is the issue here? The "bump" - the head high contact - the fact its Buddy in the week before the Hawks biggest game of the year ....

Sure ,express your opinions as I am doing the same be mine right or wrong.

Its a public forum titled "the 'buddy' franklin report & suspension" which means that people will post their opinions on said topic and what affect this may have on any given thing...

So when you say "lets move on" where would you like people to move on to in the paremeters of this thread?

you like any other person are more than elligible to post your opinion on the matter, but advising people to move their opinion onto something else, when their opinion clearly is within the bounds of the thread title, why does that need to occur??

Let the people voice opinions and create as many hypotheticals on where the game may be headed as a direct result of this ruling, as that is what the thread title implies.

[Adelaide Hawk]

Lol, here we go with the Bradbury rubbish again. I'd much prefer my club to win GF's it shouldn't than lose ones it should.

Yep, it's funny isn't it? Geelong supporters have spent the past 12 months having a go the the Hawks for winning a Grand Final. If the Cats did "fall over", which they didn't (they were outplayed), then whose fault was that? Maybe they should be having a go at their own players rather than the team who played Grand Final football a little better than they did.

[mal]

I wonder if Natalie Vonbertouch and Erin Phillips will get drafted next year
Both have the right breeding at least

[mighty_tiger_79]

Lol, here we go with the Bradbury rubbish again. I'd much prefer my club to win GF's it shouldn't than lose ones it should.

Yep, it's funny isn't it? Geelong supporters have spent the past 12 months having a go the the Hawks for winning a Grand Final. If the Cats did "fall over", which they didn't (they were outplayed), then whose fault was that? Maybe they should be having a go at their own players rather than the team who played Grand Final football a little better than they did.

so what is it, hawthorn won because they shouldve or geelong lost it