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The social justice warriors (SJW’s) are every chance to get their way in the wake of the Tom Jonas hit on Andrew Gaff, following on from Steven May’s hit on Stef Martin a month ago. A red card system, or send-off rule, may come into the AFL.
The theory goes that if a player performs a malicious act on the football field that ends up with the opposition player unable to return, then that aggressor too should miss the rest of the match.
It sounds OK in theory – an eye for an eye, etc. But it would certainly open up a pandora’s box in a fast-moving 360-degree sport.
The SJW’s can’t stand that split-second decisions go awry and that an act of physicality could result in injury to an opponent, accidental or not. They demand justice there and then. Anything less is unsatisfactory and unfair. There are more bleeding hearts watching from the stands, the pub or the couch than actual blood on any football field.
Jonas will cop heavy penalty for his hit on Gaff, likely in the vicinity of 4-6 weeks. This will be an appropriate outcome. In theory, yes, Port were better off for the remainder of the game, with 22 men of their own against 21 from West Coast.
But the Power, challengers for a spot in the eight the Eagles currently hold, are now worse off in the medium term, and with no gain in the short term either, given they lost the match.
We’ve seen more than enough instances of sides being a man down and still winning the game that we know losing a player has no material impact.
GWS were two men down at quarter time against a 22 man Bulldogs side on Sunday, and still won the game easily, comfortably outscoring the Dogs from that point on. Sydney lost Ted Richards before quarter time against Hawthorn and still won. The week before Carlton lost Levi Casboult in the opening minutes, as did Geelong with Tom Lonergan. Both won.
Oh, and who won that Q-Clash where Stef Martin couldn’t return? That’s right, Brisbane did.
Who will decide if a player should be sent off? It can’t be the umpires. How often do we see match-day reports get thrown out? They have too much on their plate as it is with ridiculous rules and interpretations changing by the week.
Obviously the umpires should be stripped of the ability to make match-day reports, but that’s another story for another day.
Do we really want off-field officialdom making decisions of that magnitude? They’ve already made the score review system a farce, and can’t be trusted.
What about if a player is knocked out due to accidental contact, or a glancing non-malicious blow? Everyone is going to have a different interpretation of events, and some are going to deem that it was a purposeful act. Do we really want to see an innocent player missing half a match of football? What if the innocent player is the best player on one side, and the victim is a first game rookie? Hardly a fair equation.
What if the player is the victim of friendly fire? Should their teammate also miss the rest of the game?
Ridiculous, right? Of course it is. This is a physical sport, and sometimes unfortunate things happen. There is no reason, compelling or otherwise, to change the rules.
But what if a coach sends someone, or a player himself decides in a grand final to deliberately target the opposition’s best player, knocking them out at the opening bounce with an act of thuggery?
In terms of a response, Sean Connery said it best in The Untouchables – “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue.”
But does anyone really think AFL footy is played that way these days? No. This isn’t the 60s, 70s or even 80s. The game is so clean that incidents such as these stand out like a beacon. There’s no need to overreact to them just to satisfy the SJW’s.
There is some merit to Justin Leppitsch’s proposition that if a player gets suspended against you, he is also ineligible to play you the next time you meet. There is great value behind that idea, particularly if that ban is on top of whatever suspension is meted out.
That way, the aggrieved party does get some justice of their own, but after a considered process, not on the spur of-the-moment when emotions could be running high.
There is a time and a place for rule changes. Many have unintended and unforeseen negative consequences. Some are fantastically positive (hello deliberate out of bounds rule).
But let’s not suffer from yet another knee-jerk reaction to an incident of increasing rarity, and let’s not bow down to the vocal SJW’s who feed on their own false outrage like oxygen. Jonas made a mistake, and will serve his punishment.