Don’t be a twit. That actually was a free kick, despite the backflip. If you have your head over the ball and one or two blokes run in and make contact with their legs, that’s a free every day of the week.
I’ll be as twittish as I like thank you very much. Go back and watch the video again. I have watched many times and there is no doubting Pendles intent was not to win the ball but to milk a free kick.
He bends over to pick the ball up, basically drops his head to his ankles and then moves his head fwd into the Essendon players legs to accentuate the contact. And then flops backwards.
If he played the ball, he would possibly still got contacted high and earned a free. But the hit would have been to his jaw.
Burrowing your head into the ground and hoping for contact as you move fwd into players has the real risk of a player getting a spinal cord injury. Originally, burrowing your head like Pendles did was akin to ducking ur head and was not a free kick as you choose not to keep your head up.
It’s only been in the past decade or so the interpretation (has wrongly) shifted to allow players to milk it for a free