MRP / Trib. Tribunal Thread - rules and offences discombobulation

[Buget]

If Webster was careless, what’s intentional?

The grading further degrades the AFL and has probably caused more damage than the bump.

What a disgrace. Grow a back bone AFL.

 

[yepits2020]

If Webster was careless, what’s intentional?

The grading further degrades the AFL and has probably caused more damage than the bump.

What a disgrace. Grow a back bone AFL.

Don’t you know that lining someone up is a split second decision.

 

[shewho]

Can anyone make sense to me why the "feet planted" argument was presented in the SPP case as a factor that made it worse, when in actual fact i've always thought the opposite to be true?

No, the evidence lead in the SPP case was that the feet were planted for a tackle. The decision to bump (if there was a conscious decision) was in the last 0.1 seconds. The bio-mechanist said all SPP’s movements prior to then were consistent with intention to tackle, not bump.

Port argued that SPPs culpability was low because until the last blink, he was tackling. Yet he got 4. Webster is looking at 8-12, if there was true consistency at the tribunal.

 

[shewho]

If Webster was careless, what’s intentional?

The grading further degrades the AFL and has probably caused more damage than the bump.

What a disgrace. Grow a back bone AFL.

For intentional, you have to prove he intended to get him in the head. He’s straight to the tribunal anyway so the tribunal can change the classification or just load up the games on the “careless” classification if they want to. Once it is direct to the tribunal, the classification doesn’t really matter.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

There was never a chance of Webster's action being graded intentional - they would have to prove he intended to hit Simpkin in the head with his shoulder. Too much grey.

They could introduce another category of Reckless which is between Careless and Intentional. But then they probably would have slapped that on SPP too and so still have no wiggle room.

The question now is what penalty will they pursue at the tribunal? That's the test of their resolve to stamp out this conduct.

 

[Buget]

There was never a chance of Webster's action being graded intentional - they would have to prove he intended to hit Simpkin in the head with his shoulder. Too much grey.

They could introduce another category of Reckless which is between Careless and Intentional. But then they probably would have slapped that on SPP too and so still have no wiggle room.

The question now is what penalty will they pursue at the tribunal? That's the test of their resolve to stamp out this conduct.

How do you prove intent on a football field? And where do you draw the line?

The intent to bump is pretty clear.

I’m sure there are some legal technicalities behind it.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Been graded as careless conduct, exact same as SPP.

They will give him 5


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Careless

Never change afl

 

[240volt]

Don’t you know that lining someone up is a split second decision.

True it first entered his mind last week.
If you wasn’t a die hard footy person you could easily give this competition a big miss permanently.
More corrupt than the Catholic Church.

 

[agmsy]

If Webster was careless, what’s intentional?

They'll say intentional is only for cases where the player clearly intended to commit a reportable offence.

If Webster had clobbered Simpkin with a haymaker then it would be intentional because the rules prohibit striking in all instances.

The rules say you can't bump high, but they don't say you can't bump. If they grade the incident as intentional then Webster will argue that he intended to bump Simpkin but did not intend to make high contact, and the tribunal will accept that he acted without due care for his opponent but did not act to intentionally jump into Simpkin's head.

It's f***ing stupid.

They either need to lower the threshold for intentional - Webster intended to bump Simpkin and so he's fully culpable for whatever contact and impact resulted - or introduce a reckless grading between careless and intentional - to properly capture that Powell-Pepper didn't show due care for his opponent but Webster acted with reckless disregard for the likely outcomes/balance of probabilities.

 

[Powerade 08]

They'll say intentional is only for cases where the player clearly intended to commit a reportable offence.

If Webster had clobbered Simpkin with a haymaker then it would be intentional because the rules prohibit striking in all instances.

The rules say you can't bump high, but they don't say you can't bump. If they grade the incident and international then Webster will argue that he intended to bump Simpkin but did not intend to make high contact, and the tribunal will accept that he acted without due care for his opponent but did not act to intentionally jump into Simpkin's head.

It's f***ing stupid.

They either need to lower the threshold for intentional - Webster intended to bump Simpkin and so he's fully culpable for whatever contact and impact resulted - or a reckless grading between careless and intentional - to properly capture that Powell-Pepper didn't show due care for his opponent but Webster acted with reckless disregard for the likely outcomes/balance of probabilities.

The system is s**t on purpose. So they can get away with giving this guy 5 weeks or whatever.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

How do you prove intent on a football field? And where do you draw the line?

The intent to bump is pretty clear.

I’m sure there are some legal technicalities behind it.

It's not about the intent to bump. It's to show the intent for the bump to result in the outcome produced, ie a blow to the head and a reportable offence. It's basically unprovable, too many variables in play.

Really, intentional is about punching the head or body, or even less likely the old elbow to the jaw like old mate Bickley pulled out on Wakelin.

 

[GremioPower]

shouldn't it be 0 weeks considering its the same as Maynards? I don't get why it's being compared to Pepper's when it's literally the same as Maynards

It wasn’t. It was way worst than Maynards.

 

[GremioPower]

They can only add one higher level to how they adjudicated SPP and that's to judge the act 'Intentional' - but they won't be able to do that.

It was obviously intentional.

 

[PatientMental]

Intentional is essentially trying to boot someone head off who's already on the grouns, beginning from many metres away.

Intentional appears to be their version of significant premeditation

 

[Sewer de Lance]

In light of Webster’s foolhardy indiscretion, even David King is now saying maybe we went too hard on SPP. No **** Sherlock, if Sam’s was worth 4 (which it clearly isn’t), then Webster must take a 2 month hit at the bare minimum.

 

[Festerz]

There was never a chance of Webster's action being graded intentional - they would have to prove he intended to hit Simpkin in the head with his shoulder. Too much grey.

That's not how charges work in a judicial system - even in the AFL's quasi judicial tribunal system.

The MRO assesses the situation and lays a charge within the rules which is then put to the tribunal with evidence to support it.

The defence then answers the charge with an opportunity to present their own evidence to challenge the charge.

The Tribunal then considers the arguments and evidence of both sides to deliver a verdict. Just as in a criminal court there is no such thing as certainty but you give the Tribunal/Jury the power to make the judgement based on the evidence.

That the MRO did not submit a charge of intentional conduct to allow it to be tested in the current environment is what my issue is here. Because for the life of me I can't see any other intent of a professional athlete launching into another at head hight other than what happened as a result?

So why didn't he?

If the AFL is serious of outlawing hits like this then an overhaul of the definitions around intent is surely needed to give certainty to the process.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Absolute ****ing joke. That was the most 'intentional' head high bump I've seen since the ******* nineties.

 

[Portmagpies36]

8 weeks END OF

 

[Janey]

In light of Webster’s foolhardy indiscretion, even David King is now saying maybe we went too hard on SPP. No **** Sherlock, if Sam’s was worth 4 (which it clearly isn’t), then Webster must take a 2 month hit at the bare minimum.

If the vast majority of football supporters could see this was going to happen, how the hell could the people running the show be so short sighted, it's totally incompetent.

 

[VineValerian]

So if SPP had launched Pickett style he probably gets off!

The only reason you should be airborne is to try and effect a spoil, and only then where there is a very high probability of smothering the ball.

Webster jumped in from the side, and made contact with Simpkin well after the ball was kicked, so virtually no chance of smothering it. Ergo, no reason to jump high other than to come in late, take out the body, and "make 'Im earn it".

Thus, it's a deliberate or intentional act - as well as careless.

 

[El_Scorcho]

The careless/intentional split has always been a joke. Much like the impact rating, it's not fit for purpose. They effectively can't accurately judge intent because a player will just always claim they were going for the ball and just missed by a lot, unless you get a Gaff style punch.

We said just a week ago that if SPP's was severe, what happens when we get a genuinely bad one. The MRO matrix may as well be scrapped, it's completely meaningless.

The AFL have backed themselves into a corner here where they have to hand out an enormous suspension. 6 won't feel like enough, but I think that's probably where they'll land.

If they give Webster 4, it's just racism against SPP, there's no other explanation for it.

 

[proman_x]

View attachment 1919261

Thanks, snoz.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

It's ******* annoying how everyone is coming out the woodwork now to say SPPs ban was too much.

A bit ******* late.

No doubt it is an AFL directive to help promote the fact that they aren't going to charge anyone else like they did SPP.

On SM-G975F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[GremioPower]

because a player will just always claim they were going for the ball and just missed by a lot

Law has principles against such an argument. For instance, if you act as if you didn’t care about the outcome, the intent is simply assumed.

That’s precisely the case.

It’s different than Maynards, which is also different than SPP.

The way I was taught in Law School, the difference between a case like Webster’s, a case like Maynard’s, and a case like SPP’s is:

a) Webster acted as if implying: “I will do it, if he gets hurt, so be it”; while
b) Maynard acted as if thinking: “I will just smother the ball and I won’t hit him”; and
c) SPP acted as if caught unprepared: “This is not what I was expecting at all”.

The outcomes may be similar in all three cases, but the way all three actions were perpetrated was very distinct from one another. They should all be treated accordingly.

I’ve ordered them from worst to least bad. There would still be one or two degrees above Webster (take Goff’s punch off the ball as an example).

 

[El_Scorcho]

Law has principles against such an argument. For instance, if you act as if you didn’t care about the outcome, the intent is simply assumed.

That’s precisely the case.

It’s different than Maynards, which is also different than SPP.

The way I was taught in Law School, the difference between a case like Webster’s, a case like Maynard’s, and a case like SPP’s is:

a) Webster acted as if implying: “I will do it, if he gets hurt, so be it”; while
b) Maynard acted as if thinking: “I will just smother the ball and I won’t hit him”; and
c) SPP acted as if caught unprepared: “This is not what I was expecting at all”.

The outcomes may be similar in all three cases, but the way all three actions were perpetrated was very distinct from one another. They should all be treated accordingly.

I’ve ordered them from worst to least bad. There would still be one or two degrees above Webster (take Goff’s punch off the ball as an example).

Oh absolutely. In South Australia at least, the law will usually make a distinction between recklessly or with intent, but you're still being charged under the same act and it's usually a fairly easy distinction to make. On a footy field you've got the complicating factor of a player basically always being able to argue that what he was doing was in play, even if the ball has been kicked away like in the Webster case.

IIRC, they used to have negligent, reckless and intentional. Where negligent was something like what SPP did, where you're making a footy play but you go in too hard and hurt someone. Reckless was more like what Webster did, where your action wasn't a reasonable play at the footy at all, then intentional was for off the ball strikes and things of that nature.

The issue we have now is that we've lost the granularity in the MRO matrix. They've done away with the 3 intent categories which means anything but an off the ball hit is now careless, and they've decreed that a concussion (or something that could cause one) must be severe impact so we're basically going to see the vast majority of reportable offences fall into careless/severe. What's the point of the MRO matrix if this is the standard?

People might argue that the MRO matrix doesn't matter because everything serious ends up at the tribunal anyway, but it does. Look at Maynard last year. Because it was graded careless, it was only a step down to non-reportable. If it had been graded reckless as it should have been under the old system, it's much harder for them to go from the middle tier of responsibility to nothing. Similarly, once SPP's incident is graded severe impact, you've got the AFL calling for an extra week to scapegoat SPP for the tribunal's failure on the Maynard case.

The MRO matrix needs an overhaul or to be scrapped and every case can go to the tribunal again.