Brodie Grundy's tackle- what's the verdict?

[DaVe86]

One of the things that gets me is intent. I like Ollie Wines, but there was no excuse for that. We've all had that mad brain rush to the head playing footy when you line someone up with the intention to hurt. (Well I did anyway) That's what it looked like.
To my mind intent is worse than outcome. The game is not administered that way .

The AFL is just in many ways reflective of the legal system. Outcome has a huge bearing on a sentence.

There is a legal principle that you take a person as you find them.

If you punch 2 people with exactly the same force, in exactly the same spot, yet one dies and one lives...then it's not murder for both. You just got lucky on the 2nd one because the person had a thicker skull or was not as susceptible to injury.

The same applies to footy. You can't rub someone out for extreme force if the incident didn't cause an extreme outcome.

Having said that, the intent and action still needs to be a very important factor as well. Perhaps the outcome should determine the length of the penalty (ie murder might be 25 years, assault 15)....but it shouldn't be the determinative factor as to whether a person gets rubbed out. Attempted murder is still a crime for example, even if you didn't get the outcome you were after!

The first assessment needs to be whether the act actually constitutes an offence (regardless of the outcome), and then the outcome should be factored in when it comes to grading.

I think this is what you get when you have 2 ex-footballers on the MRP. They don't have a legal background and aren't experts in applying law. This is why I am a strong advocate of players challenging MRP decisions. I like the tribunal process to make the ultimate decision sometimes where there is grey. I hate that players pretty much blindly accept MRP decisions.

Wines was extremely lucky.

 

[Countrypie]

The AFL is just in many ways reflective of the legal system. Outcome has a huge bearing on a sentence.

There is a legal principle that you take a person as you find them.

If you punch 2 people with exactly the same force, in exactly the same spot, yet one dies and one lives...then it's not murder for both. You just got lucky on the 2nd one because the person had a thicker skull or was not as susceptible to injury.

The same applies to footy. You can't rub someone out for extreme force if the incident didn't cause an extreme outcome.

Having said that, the intent and action still needs to be a very important factor as well. Perhaps the outcome should determine the length of the penalty (ie murder might be 25 years, assault 15)....but it shouldn't be the determinative factor as to whether a person gets rubbed out. Attempted murder is still a crime for example, even if you didn't get the outcome you were after!

The first assessment needs to be whether the act actually constitutes an offence (regardless of the outcome), and then the outcome should be factored in when it comes to grading.

I think this is what you get when you have 2 ex-footballers on the MRP. They don't have a legal background and aren't experts in applying law. This is why I am a strong advocate of players challenging MRP decisions. I like the tribunal process to make the ultimate decision sometimes where there is grey. I hate that players pretty much blindly accept MRP decisions.

Wines was extremely lucky.

Excellent post - what I was trying to do was contrast Grundy & Dangefields legitimate tackles and unfortunate unintended results with Wines' deliberate action and fortunate outcome.

If you like to continue your analogy - Grundy & Danger could be likened to being charged with manslaughter due to negligence whereas Wines' act could be likened to attempted murder. It's not a great analogy because as I've already said, I think WInes made a split second dumb decision, but it was without doubt, intentional.

To my mind when a player deliberately lines somebody up who has disposed of the ball then they should be hit with the kitchen sink.

Neither Grundy, nor Danger's tackles were outside what would be deemed normal behaviour and the consequences were unfortunate. I have no argument with them being rubbed out if similar tackles that didn't result in sanction were cited. There were numerous instances on the weekend of sling tackles where luck rather than good management prevailed. These tackles will continue while the inconsistenc remains.

As for the latest tip rat, Toby Greene - again if it was intentional he should have got more than a fine, if it wasn't there should be no case to answer. What makes it greyer - is that if Selwood, Bontompelli or one of the other media darlings did it there would have been no outrage and probably no report - but that's an entirely different debate