When discussing concussion, use your head, not your heart
Roar Rookie I am astonished at the furore around the Jack Ziebell suspension. Many involved with the game will have you believe the suspension is the beginning of the end for the AFL.
It’s not that I don’t have sympathy that Jack misses football for a couple of weeks for what probably was an accident, but the greater worry here is the hysteria regarding the wellbeing of the game.
Where is the same emotion regarding the wellbeing of players?
Last night on a football television program, an AFL club president mockingly referred to a medical report by a club doctor as listing Joseph as “clinically dead” in regards to his concussion. This was a very irresponsible attempt at humour.
Do we want to discourage players owning up to symptoms of concussion for fear of media attention?
Concussion surely shouldn’t be so flippantly referred to as some kind of exaggerated injury. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for someone to bring some balance to the outcry and acknowledge the AFL’s attempts to lessen it’s occurrence in the game as commendable.
Even after it was widely reported that an American concussion expert recently described AFL as a sport with a “very high risk for brain trauma”, and highlighted the subsequent health issues, there is still this overwhelming stigma out there towards penalising head high contact. Why?
Thankfully, those so emotionally invested are not in control of the game. If the powers that be down at AFL house decided to make decisions based on emotion and outdated notions of toughness, we’d likely see even more guys retire due to the risk of ‘just one more knock’. We would see even more players making regular trips to brain specialists because of alarming instances of brain pain and other severe side effects.
A guy left the ground to contest a handball and subsequently hit the player in the head.
Accident or otherwise, this just simply isn’t allowed, so why are clubs taking so long to absorb this?
Emotive coaches and media personalities will have you believe that such suspensions will now happen with alarming regularity, but this ignores the fact that the head has been sacrosanct for some time now.
The majority of players have modified their technique accordingly and we have seen very few incidents.
Brad Scott called the suspension a “sad day for football” at one of his pressers this week. No Brad, that terminology should be reserved for cases such as former Crow Scott Stevens retiring last year due to the after affects of concussion.
Stand back, take a deep breath, and realise that protecting the head is one of the initiatives the AFL should be applauded for.
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July 23rd 2012 @ 10:47am
Bayman said | July 23rd 2012 @ 10:47am | Report comment
Keldab,
While I’m sure most Roarers would approve your sentiment that the head should be protected, myself included, I fear you are missing a key point which is the one concerning some of those “emotive coaches and media personalities” you mentioned.
It concerns me too. That is, football is a physical game and accidents do happen. The day the AFL starts suspending everyone who survives a head clash because the other guy got concussion will be a sad day indeed.
In Jack Ziebell’s case the tribunal admitted he was going for the ball. How can a player get suspended for that? Seriously.
Let’s take the recent example of Kurt Tippett (his third bout of concussion in about five weeks). Tippett had the ball and Waters ran in to tackle him and there was a clash of heads. Tippett, we now know, got a mild concussion from the impact. What if Waters too had a mild concussion? Given Tippett’s head hit Waters as much as Waters head hit Tippett who should get suspended? Perhaps you’d prefer both to be rubbed out?
Further, would Tippett have suffered his concussion if he had not suffered the previous two instances not long before? We can never know but surely Waters is not responsible for the first two and can hardly be blamed for the third. Tippett’s second bout, incidentally, was against Port when an opposition players backed into him in a marking contest and clashed heads. Should the AFL now ban marking contests for being inherently dangerous?
In other words, accidents do happen and the AFL should be aware of that. After all, McKernan had his jaw broken against Port Adelaide in a marking contest. Clearly high contact, clearly with enough force to break his jaw. No free kick, no MRP, no tribunal, no suspension – so, apparently, accidents can, and do, happen.
Why then does the AFL have so much difficulty in the Ziebell case. He jumped for the ball and his jump gave him an advantage of height in the collision with Joseph. Yes, Ziebell turned in the air to protect himself and Joseph wore the brunt. Timing is everything. Had Joseph been a metre closer, or a metre further away, he would not have suffered anything other than a normal football collision. There is such a thing as luck you know – and also, by definition, bad luck.
Perhaps the AFL would prefer two players to run, or jump, at each other without any attempt to protect themselves at all so they both can be injured equally. If mutual concussion is the result then presumably, as I suggested previously, they would both be suspended. If not, I’d want to know why not?
Can you see how messy this can get when the AFL goes all politically correct on us and starts penalising players for doing what their coach tells them to do, and expects them to do, in a contested situation. They start getting selective and, bingo, there’s another can of worms foisted upon us by the AFL in their push to sanitise the game.
So, Keldab, what you are saying – and what the AFL would appear to be trying to do – are fine and noble sentiments and perfectly reasonable in an effort to keep out the thugs. But when guys are getting suspended for attacking the footy then the AFL has gone way too far.
Having said all that it’s no great surprise. Today we are teaching our kids and anyone who will listen that whatever happens to us someone else is responsible and you should be able to blame them – and take them to court, if necessary. In the AFL this manifests itself in Ziebell being totally responsible for what happened while Joseph has no responsibility at all to protect himself and make the same judgement that Ziebell was supposed to make (which is don’t go for the ball).
Had Joseph been thinking responsibly he would have stepped aside and allowed Ziebell to take the ball unimpeded and then, presumably, run downfield with it. Oddly enough, Joseph refused to do so and suffered the consequences. Why was that, I wonder. Perhaps his coach might have been a tad disappointed. Not to mention his teammates. And the Carlton fans. So Joseph stayed in the contest. How is that Ziebell’s fault?
Why then do the AFL and its related MRPs and tribunals – not to mention you, Keldab – have so much trouble understanding Joseph’s actions in all this. Players are taught from a very young age that when it’s your turn to go – you go. Joseph knew this, understood this and agreed with this. He stayed in the contest as expected by, well, everyone. He also knew that Ziebell would stay in the contest and a collision was inevitable – and still Joseph stayed in.
Cricket captains cannot set fields for bad bowling, governments cannot legislate for idiots and the AFL cannot expect that every clash will result in both players being injury free. The AFL cannot suspend every player who survives a clash or pretty soon we’ll all be watching the “B” graders running around.
I can remember a time when whole rounds were played without a player even being reported, let alone suspended. Today there’s half a dozen cases cited every week. Something’s gone terribly wrong and it’s called the AFL. The real worry is that we all now accept it as normal.