Tackling the tackling issue, how do we resolve the issue?

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It’s beyond time to question the validity of players being made ineligible for the Brownlow due to suspension IMO.

That criteria is a throwback to a bygone era when deliberate acts of dirty play were the only reason players faced the tribunal - most suspensions these days are due to incidents that occur with no ill-intent from the offender.

Who cares about a bloody umpires medal!

A gun player will miss this years grand final because of these absurd tribunal outcomes.
 
They need to do what they love to do, start changing rules and seeing the impact. On top of the current rules I would do this -

  • First thing is to get rid of holding the ball if 1 arm is pinned (no prior). Teams train for this to get free kicks, it never use to be a rule 3-4 years ago.
  • If you have both arms pinned, you are responsible for the head contact on the ground. Player is responsible for using their free arm to soften the blow. With the footy if need be.
  • Identify and warn both parties who don't do the right thing. Track and be onto any player who seems to fake for free all behind closed doors before doing it publicly.
  • Suspend concussions. Suspend stars as well.
  • Remove Brownlow rules for footy acts and a new line in the sand where it removes the Brownlow.

That 1 arm pinned holding the ball is rubbish isn't it! Here's my fix for it...its a little decision matrix.

No Prior Opportunity
The only scenario a free kick is paid is if you dont make an immediate genuine attempt to dispose of the footy. Genuine like you're tackled in your own goalsquare and your team-mate is free beside you. Even if you dont get a legal disposal away, as long as you try, its play on as long as no prior. So if one arm is pinned and you try to kick it and miss...play on. Knowing that there is unlikely to be a ball up when tackled, the player with the ball we try to keep both arms free to get a more advantage disposal...AND the game moves faster.

With Prior Opportunity
Here a free kick for any outcome other than an immediate legal disposal.

Suspend the 2 motion tackles. Suspend the swinging slam tackles. Leave the rest alone. Butler and Sicily should both be playing.
We're talking about a lot for the umpire to make a decision in milliseconds.

And while I agree these ideas you've both got here are good ones, we shouldn't be at the point where the mro and tribunal are dissecting a 1 second play over the course of hours some days later to decide whether or not a player should be suspended / fined or not.

Further, unless we take contact out of the game, these incidents, mostly unintended, will continue.

It is impossible to legislate unintended accident out of the game, not in a practical sense anyway.

It's either players agree to an indemnity or don't play, or contact is removed from the game.

We already have a ludicrous can of worms and will only further complicate if HQ continues this path.
 

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It’s beyond time to question the validity of players being made ineligible for the Brownlow due to suspension IMO.

That criteria is a throwback to a bygone era when deliberate acts of dirty play were the only reason players faced the tribunal - most suspensions these days are due to incidents that occur with no ill-intent from the offender.
I disagree, the only problem is that "1 weekers" are being handed out like lollies this year. 22 players suspended across 14 rounds for dangerous tackles alone. They need stop, because not only is it making players miss footy and be ineligible for awards, butit's also not changing behaviour the way they obviously hoped it would.

They'll likely try to bring in a rule change about not tackling to ground, or about not pinning the arms, neither of which will really be enforceable. The best way forward is to reduce the number of overall tackles.
 
That 1 arm pinned holding the ball is rubbish isn't it! Here's my fix for it...its a little decision matrix.

No Prior Opportunity
The only scenario a free kick is paid is if you dont make an immediate genuine attempt to dispose of the footy. Genuine like you're tackled in your own goalsquare and your team-mate is free beside you. Even if you dont get a legal disposal away, as long as you try, its play on as long as no prior. So if one arm is pinned and you try to kick it and miss...play on. Knowing that there is unlikely to be a ball up when tackled, the player with the ball we try to keep both arms free to get a more advantage disposal...AND the game moves faster.

With Prior Opportunity
Here a free kick for any outcome other than an immediate legal disposal.

Suspend the 2 motion tackles. Suspend the swinging slam tackles. Leave the rest alone. Butler and Sicily should both be playing.
What about: prior opportunity interpretation ceases to exist. You take possession, you have to kick or handball. If not, holding the ball. Simple.

There'll be 100 less tackles per game.
 
The Jeremy Cameron injury should spotlight the unsustainability of the current AFL judgement on bumps and tackles. If that bump had been delivered by an opposition player, the discussion would be all about how many weeks it was worth. It was an accidental hit from a team mate so nothing is said, but from an opponent and just as accidental, the talk would all be about carelessness and duty of care and inevitable weeks. It should make it obvious to all that the rules as they stand and as they are interpreted don't (and can't) work.

The AFL has to act on concussion injuries. The current approach of "blame the players", used so often by the AFL to deal with its problems will destroy the game. I don't have a ready made policy to deal with this, and it must be dealt with, but I know that the current method is utterly wrong.
 
The afl examples of ‘safe tackling’ were in slow congested play which no one likes to see or watch

The accidents happen in random open play which everyone likes and the afl has been trying to encourage
 
The AFL have resolved it. Dangerous tackles now only mean when someone is injured. So you can do the exact same motion twice, once where it doesnt hurt, and once where it does. You get penalised for the one which hurts.

Stocker laid a dangerous tackle where he pinned an arm, slung, and slammed head first in to the ground but it did no damage so there is no penalty.

This is the new world of the AFL. 100% based on outcome.

King also swung a late fist but luckily only clipped rather than collected, so no issue there as well.

Because the AFL has moved to 100% based on outcome.
 
The Jeremy Cameron injury should spotlight the unsustainability of the current AFL judgement on bumps and tackles. If that bump had been delivered by an opposition player, the discussion would be all about how many weeks it was worth. It was an accidental hit from a team mate so nothing is said, but from an opponent and just as accidental, the talk would all be about carelessness and duty of care and inevitable weeks. It should make it obvious to all that the rules as they stand and as they are interpreted don't (and can't) work.

The AFL has to act on concussion injuries. The current approach of "blame the players", used so often by the AFL to deal with its problems will destroy the game. I don't have a ready made policy to deal with this, and it must be dealt with, but I know that the current method is utterly wrong.

Also they have added in the limited interchanges to quote ‘tire people out’. Whether this makes the injury issue worse or not is debatable
 

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The AFL have resolved it. Dangerous tackles now only mean when someone is injured. So you can do the exact same motion twice, once where it doesnt hurt, and once where it does. You get penalised for the one which hurts.

Stocker laid a dangerous tackle where he pinned an arm, slung, and slammed head first in to the ground but it did no damage so there is no penalty.

This is the new world of the AFL. 100% based on outcome.

King also swung a late fist but luckily only clipped rather than collected, so no issue there as well.

Because the AFL has moved to 100% based on outcome.

Yep. Close pinned an arm for way longer than Sicily but no serious damage done therefore no penalty.

The AFL now have their standard. If it does damage its dangerous.

Unless you bust an arm by kicking it. That is okay.
 
I'm confused, Brad Close's tackle looks more dangerous than some of the ones that have been suspensions
There was nothing dangerous about the tackle. The little fella pinned one arm and just hung on. The bigger bloke thought he could break the tackle, but couldn't.

At what point does the responsibility shift to the person being tackled? Francis had a hand free, albeit cradling a football. If Brad lets go, that's a goal for Sydney.
 
There was nothing dangerous about the tackle. The little fella pinned one arm and just hung on. The bigger bloke thought he could break the tackle, but couldn't.

At what point does the responsibility shift to the person being tackled? Francis had a hand free, albeit cradling a football. If Brad lets go, that's a goal for Sydney.
There have been suspensions for tackles where neither arm was pinned
 
There was nothing dangerous about the tackle. The little fella pinned one arm and just hung on. The bigger bloke thought he could break the tackle, but couldn't.

At what point does the responsibility shift to the person being tackled? Francis had a hand free, albeit cradling a football. If Brad lets go, that's a goal for Sydney.
I know the scg is small but I don't think Francis quite has the leg to kick one from the back pocket
 
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There was nothing dangerous about the tackle. The little fella pinned one arm and just hung on. The bigger bloke thought he could break the tackle, but couldn't.

At what point does the responsibility shift to the person being tackled? Francis had a hand free, albeit cradling a football. If Brad lets go, that's a goal for Sydney.

One arm pinned and head hit the ground.

Weve seen 15 or 16 suspensions with those.
 
So now the MRO use common sense? Where’s it been all year? Why not use it the 1st time you suspended Close?

Its common sense to have 2 identical actions and only penalise the one where a player gets hurt ?

Someone got a week for a jumper punch which did no damage. Surely that should have been ignored if outcome is the only valid measure.
 
There have been suspensions for tackles where neither arm was pinned
Neither arm was pinned... but perhaps the tackle(s) you're referring to had more of a pronounced slinging action?

Brad simply pinned one arm and hung on, attempting to slow up the much bigger Francis. Francis fell forward and hit his head through his own momentum.

At the end of the day, nobody did anything wrong though. It's all 🐄 💩 as these are simply footy incidents that couldn't be avoided.

There's no way to completely prevent head injuries from happening in tackling situations unless tackling is removed altogether.
 

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