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It is not universally agreed that the jumper and stomach punch should be outlawed from the game, which seems farcical to say in 2017.
However, certain changes can’t just be simply made because media outcry grew to such a point that Simon Lethlean couldn’t drown it out anymore. Let’s be honest, this discussion isn’t a new one – it isn’t as if a team sat down around the magnets prior to Round 1 and decided that they were going to try a new means of hurting the opposition by punching them while holding their jumper.
This has been an issue season after season and the inconsistencies continue to make fans scratch their heads.
Last season we saw Tom Hawkins have a spell on the sidelines simply because he forgot to grab on to that piece of collar that makes everything OK.
The AFL came down hard on him and fans believed that a precedent had been set for intentional contact to the face. Yet here we are in Round 10 of the 2017 season with more confusion than ever.
Trent Cotchin belted Lachie Neale two rounds ago – let’s not beat around the bush, it was a belting – but it was deemed a reasonable action because he did his best to keep some part of his fist in contact with that the oppositions jersey which offers immunity.
Going a bit further down the body, it has apparently been deemed acceptable to punch a bloke in the stomach. I might be losing my memory, but I was sure David Zaharakis copped a one-match suspension last year for punching Jackson Nelson in the guts.
I also remember the Match Review Panel releasing a statement in December of 2016 after that suspension stating that the panel would “Apply a stricter interpretation of impact for Intentional Strikes to the Body where the force of the strike warrants a suspension…”
Clearly, the independently-run body has lost its way if it can release a statement of this nature and allow Ben Cunnington to line up for North Melbourne on the weekend after his stomach punch on Bernie Vince.
To suggest that the impact was below the required force to warrant a suspension is farcical, with video footage available of Vince forcibly vomiting after the contact.
Nevertheless, arguing about the fact that whether the punch of any description has a place in this game is beyond the point.
The point is that Lethlean’s comments yesterday were out of place and about ten incidents too late. For those of you who missed his press conference he stated that “It might be that the conduct thus far has been given the benefit of the doubt when grading’s occur… but we want to reset that from this week forward.”
Now I don’t know about anybody else, but if I was a player who was offered a suspension over the coming weekend for a jumper or stomach punch, that suspension would be immediately taken to the tribunal and pleaded not guilty.
Why, you ask? It’s simple – just because it has been put on the agenda by one of the AFL’s head honchos does not mean that the rule has officially been changed in any capacity, therefore what was deemed to be a legal and responsible act in the past nine rounds, should remain so until the last weekend of September.
The punch of the nature we are speaking is a blight on the game, however it is not a new blight. The AFL and MRP have collectively been confronted with this issue for the better part of five years and the time to act was evidently prior to the commencement of the 2017 season.
So, for now, happy punching.
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