Ziebell - Guilty?

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Sep 26, 2010
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Am I the only one in the AFL universe who thinks the penalty was perfectly acceptable? I love good, hard contested footy more than the next bloke but there is no chance his primary focus was to go for the ball. If you watch the incident over, his right arm never even goes up for the ball.

I have no doubt his first instinct was to bump, but when he realised the ball was in reach, he lifted one arm up and left the other arm down to make contact with Joseph. That's all well and good but contact with the head, and concussing the bloke makes this a pretty easy verdict.

Anyone else with me or am I just getting soft? :p
 

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I think it was a bit harsh, but under the system the groupings and language used to suspend him was correct, thus the 4 weeks is correct.

What was strange was that Chris Judd, whose case was no more important then either Merrett's or Ziebell's case, took over 3 hours while Merrett's case took about an hour and Ziebell's lasted only minutes.

Surely everyone is due the same rights to a fair hearing, Judd's was a circus and Ziebell's was thrown out without due consideration to North's defense IMO, even if the defense was probably going to fail.
 

Gambit78

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eyes were on the ball and he knew there was going to be contact. a player is allowed to keep an arm down to brace for that contact. christ, he got to the ball first. it's not zeibull's fault it was a hospital handpass. and frankly, if he's aim was to only bump he could have destroyed joseph if he wanted to. if this is the new direction the tribunal is taking then i'm not exactly sure how a player is going to approach this very situation zeibull was faced with. imagine the scrutiny (and derision) he would have copped if he stood back and let joseph take possession. players and umpires have a f****d job at the moment.
 
Sep 26, 2010
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He actually didn't get the ball first. Joeseph clearly gets their first and then the ball just drops into Ziebell's hands.

2.png


What was stopping him from putting his right arm out and letting his knees go into Joseph first to 'brace for the contact'?
 
Aug 16, 2006
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Am I the only one in the AFL universe who thinks the penalty was perfectly acceptable? I love good, hard contested footy more than the next bloke but there is no chance his primary focus was to go for the ball. If you watch the incident over, his right arm never even goes up for the ball.

I have no doubt his first instinct was to bump, but when he realised the ball was in reach, he lifted one arm up and left the other arm down to make contact with Joseph. That's all well and good but contact with the head, and concussing the bloke makes this a pretty easy verdict.

Anyone else with me or am I just getting soft? :p
Nah, I'm with you.
No-one's said he was guilty of a snipe, or a deliberate hit.
They're saying he didn't do the most he could, to avoid a head high contact. (Negligence)

Which I don't think is even arguable:
He saw Joseph coming, saw he wasn't going to jump, and took off with arm braced for a bump.


Irony is, he could've gone in front on (like a marking contest), and absolutely pole-axed Joseph through the midriff, and taken the ball cleanly with the arms free to handball off, and it'd be all above board.
Don't really know why he didn't.
 

Swooop

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He actually didn't get the ball first. Joeseph clearly gets their first and then the ball just drops into Ziebell's hands.

2.png


What was stopping him from putting his right arm out and letting his knees go into Joseph first to 'brace for the contact'?

Correct - I reckon this very frame is the incriminating one.

Players learn new stuff very quickly.

They need to learn to stop knocking each other out. Otherwise, they seriously are shitting in their own nests, as concussions become bigger deals - which they will.

Some KO's will still happen as pure accidents - eg some of those sickening head clashes we see.

But let's be very honest here - many of the KO's are situations just like Wellingham's and Ziebull's - they both clearly had intent to do harm, and particularly Ziebull knew it was all 'close enough' that he could probably argue the case, plead his innocence and very likely get off.

I like him a lot as a player, but glad both he and Sharrod were found guilty - because they were - and knocking guys senseless is a terrible thing in many ways.

Again, the AFL can help this, via rule changes.

At the moment, if Team A and put one of Team B's players out of the contest, they are at a significantly higher chance of winning. Put two out early, you're good as home.

Where does that out the incentives to players in these Ziebull-type 50-50 sitautions? No brainer - "I can take this guy out 'fairly' here - don't waste the chance".

If there were more subs that could be lined up as replacements, then immediately the incentive is lessened.

And finding guys guilty in these 50-50's, well I'm all for it.

You can still play hard but keep some sense of duty of care IMO.
 

Gambit78

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Ok - the freeze frame suggests that joseph got to the ball first...by what? .0001 of a second? And Zeibull is clearly in the air already because he would need to get off the ground to gather the ball - so in that .0001 seconds, whilst in the air, what would you expect him to do?
 
Am I the only one in the AFL universe who thinks the penalty was perfectly acceptable? I love good, hard contested footy more than the next bloke but there is no chance his primary focus was to go for the ball. If you watch the incident over, his right arm never even goes up for the ball.

I have no doubt his first instinct was to bump, but when he realised the ball was in reach, he lifted one arm up and left the other arm down to make contact with Joseph. That's all well and good but contact with the head, and concussing the bloke makes this a pretty easy verdict.

Anyone else with me or am I just getting soft? :p

In my opinion he was going for the ball. The penalty is crazy. Can you imaging the reaction if this happened to Beams for example? Let's hope this sort of incident does not happen to us.
 
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never took his eyes off the ball, even the tribunal agreed he was making an attempt on the ball, but reckon he had an alternative. I'd love to know what the alternative was.

Terrible decision, not even a free kick imo
 

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Markfs

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There will always be accidents in football.... genuine accidents. As we start to punish blokes for accidents, I'm getting the feeling that the balance has gone too far the other way. Did Ziebel have a "choice" in this incident? I would argue that this has invented a new free kick....."jumping into an opposition player"
 
My only problem with the ruling is it has opened a can of worms in terms of 'did you have any other alternative' because this is only written for bumping. If the same criteria are applied, you can now get suspended for going for a mark and planting your knee in the back of someone's head and giving them concussion or if two players go hard for the ball and clash heads they can technically both get suspended if they apply it to every instance.
 

Gambit78

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I have watched this so many times and i still can't tell you he was 100% going for the ball. I also can't tell you he was 100% bumping. Tough one for the judges.

yet, on the flip side, I'm dead set certain Daniel Merrett had every intention of hurting Reiwoldt and he got nothing...
 

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