MRP / Trib. Josh Caddy 1 match ban - Should the MRP be punishing intent not outcome?

[Sterge]

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http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-04-02/tiger-to-miss-hawks-clash-after-accepting-ban

As most will have seen Josh Caddy is set to miss this weeks important Hawthorn clash after accepting a 1 match ban for striking David Mackay on Thursday night, this act occurred during an attempt to spoil the ball and could be put down to being clumsy or reckless in his attempt. I think most would however agree that if you concuss someone you are pretty much writing your own ticket, the argument here is not that Caddy should be free to play but whether should be determining sanctions based on intent not outcome.

In the Easter Monday clash Hawthorn's James Sicily was offered a one match ban for kneeing Joel Selwood in the head whilst the later was laying on the ground, with the contact ruled low impact to the head. This was not a football act and could be considered worse than Josh Caddy's strike.

The MRP actually does have a potential loading for potential to cause injury and had this to say regarding Sicily

Match Review Officer Michael Christian assessed the incident as intentional conduct with low impact to the head, resulting in a one-match ban being offered, but he had the option of lifting the impact to medium under the clause of potential to cause serious injury.

"(Football operations manager) Steve Hocking and I discussed that and certainly considered (medium impact)," Christian told Melbourne radio station SEN on Tuesday.

"I suppose when we're thinking about the potential to cause (serious injury), the forcefulness of the contact was the key issue. It wasn't overly forceful. He didn't drive his knee into Joel's head.
Click to expand...
If kneeing someone in the head does not have the potential to cause serious injury then what does? Key word there potential if he did drive he knee into Selwood's head then he likely would have caused actual injuries rendering the potential injury clause moot.

The third case to look at is Adelaide's Richard Douglas who ran past the ball to concuss Zac Merrit during their round 1 clash with Essendon this was assessed as Careless and medium the same as Josh Caddy.

So the question is should the MRP be assigning sanctions based on intent with a loading for actually causing injury or is the current system working?

The 3 incidents in question

 

[Grockadoc]

In terma of intent, Nank's and Fogarty's from the same game were far worse than Caddy's. The AFL places too much emphasis on outcome rather than the act itself.

In no way, shape or form is unintentionally concussing someone whilst trying to smother the ball even equal to deliberately kneeing someone in the head and grinding it into them. There is NO way.

 

[Maroo]

I think it was Nick Maxwell ironing out a West Coast player in Perth about 6-7 years ago and breaking his face that started this debate and I’ve been very firm on my opinion ever since.

Outcome should be irrelevant.

Intent, action and impact are what is important.

The simple fact is, two players could take the exact same hit from the exact same player in the exact same circumstance. One could get up and play on, the other could suffer serious injury and miss an extended period because of it.

You don’t change the suspension because one player is more susceptible to injury than another.

 

[Sir_Loin]

Can’t believe we didn’t challenge it. Maybe he has a strain and needs the week off anyway

 

[RobsJourney]

Clearly intent is part of the decision-making process, hence why Douglas was banned regardless of the fact that Merrett was concussed. He went the man first and not the ball and this intent is a bannable offense in the AFL.

So in Caddy's case, you can clearly see his eyes go for the ball both when he swings his open hand at it (signifying his instinctive attempt/intent to smother the ball) and, after it leaves McKay's hands, when Caddy's head and body then follow the trajectory of the ball. See how after he swats at it, his head and body turn to look at the ball as it leaves McKay's hands.

Caddy's intent was 100% ball, the contact to McKay purely incidental.

Cotchin actually got off for much "worse" and played in the GF. Reason being - his intent was always the ball.


We really should have contested this ban....... Caddy should be playing this weekend...

 

[Roachy8]

I really would like to see footballing 'accidents' separated from clumsy/negligent acts.

Cotch got off for the GF last year and fair enough in my eyes as he was playing football, contact occurred, accidentally causing (apparently) concussion for Shiel.

We lost Vlastuin last week for a 'delayed' concussion, wonder when this might have occurred v Carlton - did someone cop him in the head accidentally causing the issue????

Caddy was a total accident - wasn't even careless IMO.

We lost Rioli after the GF after he had his foot broken being tackled by multiple Crows - accident??? Duty of Care???

Lot's of grey areas....

 

[Michaels]

100% the MRP only look at the outcome and it is wrong.

Look at Jack Viney a few years ago, won a hard ball get, broke Jenkins (i think?) jaw in the process and they wanted to give him 4 weeks for it..

yes we don't want players to be injured but football is a contact sport and sometimes shit happens..

for me its pretty simple. if you cause injury to a player when your intent isnt 100% going for the ball, then your gone.

but if you're playing the game hard and aggressive (within the rules) and are hunting the ball but contact is made, they need to use common sense.


this is why i was absolutley gobsmacked when adelaide supporters kept trying to compare douglas to cotchin. Cotchin won the footy, Douglas really didn't care where the football was, he had no interest in it. massive difference.

 

[Cdog71]

I agree with Maroo, the less complex the better and taking that idea for a walk with the Douglas incident and Caddys suspension..
I get it that Caddy has a duty of care to the player and he didn't do that he was close enough to get a swinging forearm to the chin.He chose to not stop it happening and got a week, I'm alright with that.
Now if you go back to the ess v tiges JLT macintosh gave Zach Merrett a backhander in the chops that sent him off for the rest of the game, it was accidental and wasn't facing him, there was no free or report but whose to say that that didn't contribute to what happened with Douglas.
I personally don't agree he ran past the ball, I thought he used Merrett to stop and it was a great bump, but Merrett ended up failing a concussion test, who knows what contributes to that.
And Sicily and Selwood.. well there both w***ers but it should've been holding the man and it wouldn't have got to that.

 

[Charlie Pannam]

I really would like to see footballing 'accidents' separated from clumsy/negligent acts.

Cotch got off for the GF last year and fair enough in my eyes as he was playing football, contact occurred, accidentally causing (apparently) concussion for Shiel.

We lost Vlastuin last week for a 'delayed' concussion, wonder when this might have occurred v Carlton - did someone cop him in the head accidentally causing the issue????

Caddy was a total accident - wasn't even careless IMO.

We lost Rioli after the GF after he had his foot broken being tackled by multiple Crows - accident??? Duty of Care???

Lot's of grey areas....

Caddy’s incident was definitely an accident Wonder what would happen if Nicnat accidentally kneed someone in the head in a ruck contest causing concussion

 

[captain blood 17]

I thought Caddy was lucky to only get a week. Glad he took it and run. He was always gonna cop a suspension.


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[prodigy]

I thought Caddy was lucky to only get a week. Glad he took it and run. He was always gonna cop a suspension.


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Care to elaborate?


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[Tiger Toffee]

Overall i think clubs are just going to cop the 1 week when offered as to not get downgraded to a fine and strike, because with the AFL's flawed system strikes are carried over to finals when it should reset for finals.

As for intent v outcome, intent has to the main focus and not the outcome because as others have said one player could take it and another goes to fairyland for the exact same thing.

 

[captain blood 17]

Care to elaborate?


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Yep. He struck a bloke in the head and knocked him out. Over the last few years I haven't seen one bloke get off those types of incidents.
I think he was lucky not to get 2 weeks given what we have seen from the mrp.
One week was a good result for us and Caddy.


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[Grockadoc]

We should appeal to the AFL for the sicily incident being grossly inadequate.

 

[Cdog71]

I remember Chico Williams talking about an idea he had with the match review
That if they kept all the video evidence of precedents and made it all available to clubs it would eventually take a lot of the speculation out of it and clubs would know where they were at in terms of appealing or challenging.
There's too many variables in the outcome but if they focused on the intent and ran with that idea it'd take a lot of the speculation out of it

 

[Bojangles17]

Of course they have to consider the outcome otherwise they are neglecting duty of care

 

[tiggywigs]

The question is not what Caddy intended (clearly he was aiming to strike the ball not the player), but whether he took sufficient care to avoid significantly injuring the player when he swung his arm.
It's the same as going for the shirtfront and misjudging the height of impact.
A poorly executed action that exposes another player to an unnecessary risk of injury should be penalised according to the outcome IMO.

 

[SunshineBoy]

We are talking about a mrp run by the afl and are asking for consistency?

He got 1 week get over it, but that doesn’t excuse others that get nothing

 

[Grrr]

Think it is a bit like the Douglas one. Yes Douglas bumped but it looked like he measured it up and for all money it looked like it hit him hip ribs and a bit of shoulder. Good bump really, but somehow he was slightly concussed, maybe whiplash. If Douglas had bumped say Townsend, doubt he would have even gone down. Merrett got up and played next week, so it couldn't have been to bad.
Caddy was the same, tried to hit the ball but missed and accidentally whacked him. There was no intent to concuss, like Douglas tried to lessen the blow. But the act knocked him groggy, so one week for being careless. Strange tribunal, Remember when Buddy ran past the ball and cleaned Edwards front and centre.....
1 week.

 

[tigs2010]

Yep. He struck a bloke in the head and knocked him out. Over the last few years I haven't seen one bloke get off those types of incidents.
I think he was lucky not to get 2 weeks given what we have seen from the mrp.
One week was a good result for us and Caddy.


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Agree. Clocked the bloke and knocked him out cold. Gone every day of the week.

We would be screaming blue murder if Dusty was on the receiving end.

 

[prodigy]

Yep. He struck a bloke in the head and knocked him out. Over the last few years I haven't seen one bloke get off those types of incidents.
I think he was lucky not to get 2 weeks given what we have seen from the mrp.
One week was a good result for us and Caddy.


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Respectfully disagree. There was no intent there. Should never have been anymore than a high free kick with a 50 metre penalty.


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[tigerdan]

I think the afl is run by a bunch of soft *****. Challenging would just waste 10 grand because the soft ***** won't allow that kind of incident to be allowed in case wimpy parents think the game is too tough.

The way the rules are now, John Howatt would probably get rubbed out for accidentally running into John Barnes' head!

 

[Phar Ace]

The question is not what Caddy intended (clearly he was aiming to strike the ball not the player), but whether he took sufficient care to avoid significantly injuring the player when he swung his arm.

A poorly executed action that exposes another player to an unnecessary risk of injury should be penalised according to the outcome IMO.

Nailed it.

Intent alone has so many vagaries, Umpires for example can't see into the minds of players whether they intended to send the ball out of bounds, just as much as Chrisso can't know what Caddy really intended. Playing for 30 years there was plenty of times a swing of my fist for the ball had enough carry through to cause some claret to flow. I was always intending to punch the ball but with a bit of extra mayonnaise. Speed and therefore the execution has changed everything. The rules are playing catch up.

The outcome is always relevant because it leads you to assess the intent and thus judge if their was sufficient care, the rules require it.

Caddy was fortunate with 1 week. 2 weeks with one of them suspended would ensure his care improved going forward.
Sicily was a dog act and deserved more.

 

[captain blood 17]

Respectfully disagree. There was no intent there. Should never have been anymore than a high free kick with a 50 metre penalty.


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That’s cool bud. I still love ya.


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[Tiger_Of_Old]

Agree. Clocked the bloke and knocked him out cold. Gone every day of the week.

We would be screaming blue murder if Dusty was on the receiving end.

Rubbish.Dusty would've kept playing.