Firstly, let me begin by stating that I'm not a 'bring back the biff' kind of guy.
I don't pine for the good old days of king hits behind play and Grand Finals descending into street brawls to decide who is the better team.
But...
The high chance of being hurt whilst playing football is, and always has been one of its most important attributes. Not only as a spectator did your respect for these dudes go through the roof because of what they were putting on the line every time they played, but as a player you walked taller in every day life because the danger you faced whilst walking down the street was child's play compared to the s**t you copped playing footy every week.
When did we get conned into this 'duty of care' nonsense we keep hearing about these days?
The intention of almost every player, was to actually hurt your opponent. To 'make him earn it'. That was the whole point! To run him into the ground, to mentally break him down, to make him get up slowly after a tackle, to put your knees into his ribs in a marking contest, to collect the back of his head when spoiling - all aimed either getting him off the ground, or making him think twice about the next time he went near the ball.
But I totally get that the world has changed (for the better), and much of the s**t that used to happen simply is unacceptable now.
But 'duty of care'? WTF is that??
What does it even mean? And where does it end?
Does it mean avoiding flying for a mark because you might hurt the guy standing in front of you? Does it mean not tackling a bloke because you might fall on him and hurt him? Or does it mean you should tackle him, but just not very hard. Hard enough to stop him, but not hard enough to hurt him?
And what does 'hurt' even mean? I reckon I'd probably cry if Caleb Daniel even looked at me angrily - so does this need to be taken into account when guys are considering their duty of care to me?
When a guy misses a goal, and 10 opposition players attempt to publicly humiliate and denigrate him in front of his friends, family and millions of strangers - do they consider their duty of care to his mental well-being?
When a defender runs out on the ground and immediately tries to bully the forward by intimidating him physically and verbally, should he consider his duty of care to that player?
The AFL needs to shelve vague and senseless terms such as 'duty of care' and simply enforce rules.
Imagine a coach dragging a player off the ground for not going hard at a marking contest, and screaming down the phone at the player as to why he allowed him an uncontested mark - and the player simply explains that he was exercising his duty of care to that player because if he crashed into him he might have hurt him.
I love this game, and I love sport in general, but the AFL is just getting harder and harder to support let alone watch these days.
It's a very confused sport.
I don't pine for the good old days of king hits behind play and Grand Finals descending into street brawls to decide who is the better team.
But...
The high chance of being hurt whilst playing football is, and always has been one of its most important attributes. Not only as a spectator did your respect for these dudes go through the roof because of what they were putting on the line every time they played, but as a player you walked taller in every day life because the danger you faced whilst walking down the street was child's play compared to the s**t you copped playing footy every week.
When did we get conned into this 'duty of care' nonsense we keep hearing about these days?
The intention of almost every player, was to actually hurt your opponent. To 'make him earn it'. That was the whole point! To run him into the ground, to mentally break him down, to make him get up slowly after a tackle, to put your knees into his ribs in a marking contest, to collect the back of his head when spoiling - all aimed either getting him off the ground, or making him think twice about the next time he went near the ball.
But I totally get that the world has changed (for the better), and much of the s**t that used to happen simply is unacceptable now.
But 'duty of care'? WTF is that??
What does it even mean? And where does it end?
Does it mean avoiding flying for a mark because you might hurt the guy standing in front of you? Does it mean not tackling a bloke because you might fall on him and hurt him? Or does it mean you should tackle him, but just not very hard. Hard enough to stop him, but not hard enough to hurt him?
And what does 'hurt' even mean? I reckon I'd probably cry if Caleb Daniel even looked at me angrily - so does this need to be taken into account when guys are considering their duty of care to me?
When a guy misses a goal, and 10 opposition players attempt to publicly humiliate and denigrate him in front of his friends, family and millions of strangers - do they consider their duty of care to his mental well-being?
When a defender runs out on the ground and immediately tries to bully the forward by intimidating him physically and verbally, should he consider his duty of care to that player?
The AFL needs to shelve vague and senseless terms such as 'duty of care' and simply enforce rules.
Imagine a coach dragging a player off the ground for not going hard at a marking contest, and screaming down the phone at the player as to why he allowed him an uncontested mark - and the player simply explains that he was exercising his duty of care to that player because if he crashed into him he might have hurt him.
I love this game, and I love sport in general, but the AFL is just getting harder and harder to support let alone watch these days.
It's a very confused sport.
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