Cameron Ling against Freo

bluejay

All Australian
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Posts
734
Likes
0
Location
Barcelona
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
FC Barcelona
Thread starter #1
Hey,

It's been a while since I haven't posted in this forum, but it's good to be back so... Hello again from Barcelona.

On the topic, I just watched The Winners footage from the second part of the splitted Round 12 and I couldn't help but notice how come Cameron Ling didn't get reported for his fist on an opposition player's stomach without right in the middle of some pushing and shoving from both players and behind play. It was very similar to the one Barry Hall gave to our Matty Maguire in that Prelim Final some years ago (although Hall was dirtier).

Surely if some St Kilda player (let's say Baker...) does that, he gets reported and banned from an incredible number of rounds.

Is it because of he is a Geelong player? Is it because he is kind of considered a star? Is it only because no umpire saw it (difficult to understand considering the amount of umpires on AFL grounds)?

Do you reckon this will get reviewed by the panel and be sanctioned anyway?
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Kickett Punches Read

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Posts
6,847
Likes
732
Location
dullsville
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
South Mandurah Football Club
#2
Hey,

It's been a while since I haven't posted in this forum, but it's good to be back so... Hello again from Barcelona.

On the topic, I just watched The Winners footage from the second part of the splitted Round 12 and I couldn't help but notice how come Cameron Ling didn't get reported for his fist on an opposition player's stomach without right in the middle of some pushing and shoving from both players and behind play. It was very similar to the one Barry Hall gave to our Matty Maguire in that Prelim Final some years ago (although Hall was dirtier).

Surely if some St Kilda player (let's say Baker...) does that, he gets reported and banned from an incredible number of rounds.

Is it because of he is a Geelong player? Is it because he is kind of considered a star? Is it only because no umpire saw it (difficult to understand considering the amount of umpires on AFL grounds)?

Do you reckon this will get reviewed by the panel and be sanctioned anyway?
he got sighted by the MRP, and recieved a week which can be downgraded to a repremand with an early guilty plea.....
 

Plugger35

The umpires are always right!
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Posts
92,089
Likes
89,825
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
Chelsea, Black Caps, Subiaco
#6
I think the main reason Ling got off was due to his good record. If he had a poor record, like Baker, he would no doubt have got a week at least.

Can't say that system is exactly fair, when you get players getting different penalties for the same offence, but as long as it is applied consistently then you can't really argue with it. Unfortunately that doesn't always seem to be the case though, after all Steven King got 4 weeks for his offence and he also had a good record.
 
Joined
Feb 6, 2003
Posts
14,345
Likes
8,622
Location
Brisbane Qld
AFL Club
St Kilda
Moderator #7
Welcome back Bluejay. I think your question was answered well enough, but I wanted to point out the similarity of this seemingly low impact punch to the abdominal region to one Fraser Gehrig gave one of the Cloke boys playing for Collingwood. Gehrig would have received a one match penalty for it but had a blemish on his record and as such it was extended to two matches.

On appeal the Gehrig punch was reclassified from deliberate to unintentional so that the penalty incurred became one week.

There was never any question as to whether it was intentional or not !!!

I sometimes think that they decide the penalty then work back through the charge to see how they can achieve the desired outcome.

The Ling punch was quite unsportsmanlike. It may have arisen out of his absolute determination to not take a backward step, but shows that when the kid, Suban was his equal in the tussle - Ling resorted to crossing the line.

Freo had a free kick already, so Ling reasoned that his unsportsmanlike effort wasn't going to cost his team anything and that is why he allowed himself to do it. He didn't realise at the time how close he would come to missing out on a week of footy and he risked even worse consequences - imagine if the MRP had decided the penalty should be two weeks - then retrospectively classified the incident accordingly (ala Gehrigs). They only needed to define it as high impact and he would have been in real trouble.
 

StFly

Space to Rent
Joined
Oct 11, 2008
Posts
14,018
Likes
5,849
Location
Sunbury
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
Sunbury Lions
#8
The Ling punch was quite unsportsmanlike. It may have arisen out of his absolute determination to not take a backward step, but shows that when the kid, Suban was his equal in the tussle - Ling resorted to crossing the line.

Freo had a free kick already, so Ling reasoned that his unsportsmanlike effort wasn't going to cost his team anything and that is why he allowed himself to do it. He didn't realise at the time how close he would come to missing out on a week of footy and he risked even worse consequences - imagine if the MRP had decided the penalty should be two weeks - then retrospectively classified the incident accordingly (ala Gehrigs). They only needed to define it as high impact and he would have been in real trouble.
This actually brings up something I've been mulling on with all the recent rule alterations and changes. High impact has effectively been reclassified to walking up to a bloke and breaking his face with your fist to any contact to the head which causes severe injury, to any contact to the head or groin which causes severe injury. Logical progression being what it is, when are the MRP then going to consider weight or even age issues with such things? As you've said, unintentionally or not, Ling, a hardened tagger resorted to crossing the line with Suban, a kid.

Sure common sense dictates they're both playing AFL so both clubs assume they're ready to do it, but with the inconsistency of punishments and various claims that players don't get a few rules (like the rushed behind rule) one has to assume that emotion comes into the immediate decisions also (which might account for the stats on successful contesting of said decisions) So could we very well see, in the near future at least, high contact being to the head, groin or player with 2+ year differential in the system? Because after all, they're evil players picking on kids who aren't fully developed or up to speed with the game.
 
Top Bottom