Ballantyne should change tactics, says Thompson

I do enjoy Ballas and I will enjoy (again in two weeks time). I will never however wish upon anyone the need to eat through a straw for 6 weeks due to being a bit mouthy on a sports field when playing against multi millionaires. Regards Johno (one 'n' is fine, it's how I've spelt it for over 4 decades.)

Johno, Is that Johno with one "n" or with two? Which ever it is son I don't believe I suggested for a moment that players should king hit anyone from behind. It is a curious ability of fans of any sport to add their own words to someone else' comment and respond as if the additional comment came from them. I guess we can put it down to emotion. Footy is, after all, an emotional game. No Johnno (two "n"s), I'm happy for Ballantyne to carry on on he likes as long as it's ok for his victim to deck him when he does. You think he's "colourful", I think he's a little prick who is protected by the system we now have in place - which actively discourages any retaliation - and takes advantage of it. Yes, he's playing against adults not kids. Having said that I've no idea of the point you're trying to make. I presume you are suggesting adults should just let him run around like an unregistered dog giving everyone the sh*ts. He may well learn from his hit on Chapman but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for confirmation. As for Solomon's hit on Ling I confess I have no issue. Johnno, I cannot begin to emphasise enough how little I care what happens to taggers. These guys get away with it because, and only because, everyone else thinks their hands are tied and they cannot retaliate. So the taggers push the boundaries, knowing they are "safe". And they push and they push and they push. Make no mistake, the AFL has created the problem of pests like Ballantyne by trying to protect the image of the game and demanding that players accept the sanitised version of it. Once the AFL started suspending guys for accidently colliding with umpires we should have been fully understanding of the technical, politically correct nonsense being perpetrated on the game by its so-called guardians. At no point, apparently, has the AFL considered that perhaps it's more important that the umpires get out of the players way than the other way round. After all, umpires are not going to be kicking the goals, or stopping the goals, so by now it should be obvious to the AFL that fans pay money to watch the players - not the umpires. It is the players, after all, who are chasing the ball. But I digress. Don't get me wrong. I am glad the game is trying to become more skill emphasis than biff emphasis. Unfortunately, in doing so, players like Ballantyne prosper and the AFL has no answer to a problem they created. And Johnno, let me add with emphasis - I don't really care about whether the AFL has punished Ballantyne in the past for his attempts to put players off their game. I don't really care - actually, perhaps I do - that what Ballantyne does is within the rules (I refer now to the chat) as they now stand but I do care when the AFL gets all heavy-handed about the retaliation. Long may Ballantyne continue to bring his particular brand of verbal diarrhea to an AFL ground near you. However, if he spends the next six weeks taking sustenance through a straw I will have no problem and no complaint. I'm happy that you like him though...

When Drew Banfield was at the twilight of his career he was asked how he was still able to tag players. How did he handle Chris Judd, Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr well enough to keep being selected? He'd reply with his chest out, with confidence, with a type of non-chalant ease. "I pinch them." Perhaps pulling people's hair is getting too much. It's a matter of degrees. But the concept is still the same. Annoying works.

Bayman - what are the exact actions of Ballantyne that are so un-punished? He's been fined for pulling O'Briens hair (but notably Chapman was free to pull Ballantynes on the weekend without reprimand), He was fined for pinching Abletts arse (which in itself is annoying yet hardly outrage producing). He's annoying, he puts people off their game. But what exactly is it that he does that is outside of the rules? That you suggest people should be free to hit him means that Solomon should be forgiven for the hit on Ling. Ling was a tagger, he frustrated and blocked and grappled and scragged for his entire career. When you see taggers on great players not playing the ball that is frustrating. Surely you are suggesting that the Judd's of the world can punch on without retribution. Yes - Ballantyne is annoying ...... but last time I checked he was playing against adults not little kids. He's copped two weeks for his hit on Chapman (fair enough) and he'll learn from that. I love the bloke, he's a bit of colour that the PC footy world is sadly lacking. To desire to go back to the days where blokes could king hit you from behind and strut around like they're some kind of hero is not what I want my footy to be.

The Ballantyne / Scarlett incident raises an interesting question in modern football. That is, how far can a player go before retribution is warranted and justified. Back in the good old days - when men were men and women ate their young - such actions as Scarlett's were common. Not just in every season but in every round, every game. Collingwood famously won the 1958 Grand Final on the back of some biff from Harrison and Weideman who set about deliberately upsetting the Melbourne players while instructing the rest of the Magpie team to ignore it all and just play footy. In the 1960s and 70s there were players like Ted Whitten, Leigh Matthews, Kevin Sheedy, Neil Balme, John Nicholls, Vin Waite, Ronnie Andrews et al who made intimidation an art form - and the norm. As the game slowly received more and more television coverage, and "incidents" more publicit, the powers that be started clamping down. Who can forget Matthews being deregisitered as a player following his hit on Geelong's Neville Bruns. The greater coverage today, with every game available to television in some form, has seen the rise of the Match Review Panel and the virtual disappearance of players being reported by goal and boundary umpires. Personally, I cannot remember the last time a player was reported by any of these umpires. This week the North Melbourne coach, Brad Scott, called upon the AFL to remove any involvement by all umpires from the reporting process. Field umpires still report players and did so in the case of Scarlett for his hit on Ballantyne. Scott is recommending this activity cease given the umpires have enough to do just controlling the game. The modern era has seen the rise of the politically correct approach to football in both the administration and the media coverage. Loose cannons like Akermanis are criticised from every quarter if anything is said which causes people to feel a little uncomfortable. Recruiting managers are sacked for not being articulate enough to word their views in an appropriate manner. Offense is caused, and taken, at the drop of a hat with the AFL rushing to defend its upright nature and good citizenship. In this climate it can only be a matter of time before the AFL asks players and officials of all clubs to dob in a colleague who may have inadvertently said the "wrong thing". All in the name of transparency, cleanliness, the avoidance of any criticism. It raises the question, "Who guards the guards?" The AFL have made the old style physical football an anathema. Whitten today would play one, miss two, play one, miss three, play one, miss six....you get the idea. Everybody says it was a good idea to stamp out the old style thuggery and, in truth, it probably was. The trouble is it allows the serial pest to prosper. The Hayden Ballantynes of this world are free to inflict their particular brand of rubbish on the world of football with impunity. The AFL, and the media, have all jumped on the bandwagon of the sanitised modern game but have completely failed to address the hole they've left in the logic. Knowing he cannot be hit, Ballantyne is free to carry on uninhibited by the political correctness which prevents a physical retribution. The shock today is not that he got hit but that it hasn't happened many times before. So Ballantyne is free to continually "get in the face" of opposition players but they are not free to simply deck him. Were they able to do so Ballantyne would have learnt to behave years ago. Barry Hall famously resolved the problem of a player who simply would not let him go and have a free run at the ball. The umpire saw what was happening and ignored it. So Hall fixed the problem. The footy world, of course, was up in arms at the brutality of it all. As I wrote at the time, Staker didn't just get a hit - he got an education. More power to Hall as far as I'm concerned. Ballantyne behaves the way he does because he knows he can get away with it without retribution - from players, the umpires and the AFL. No doubt he was a little shocked by Scarlett's reaction but, basically, he got what he deserved. His sneak attack on Paul Chapman tells us all we need to know about Hayden Ballantyne. It seems incongruous that Geelong's coach, and their former player now commentator Cameron Ling, felt it necessary to gloss over the incident with politically correct speak rather than say what they may really have thought about it. "He's great isn't he? We'd love him on our team" is all very well but we all know that's not how they feel. It is, however, how they feel they should comment given the AFL's current mood and attitude to controversy. The AFL has taken the soft option by virtually banning anything that remotely looks physical. Soft free kicks abound which encourage the divers and the actors and the umpires are always sucked in because it probably seems the safer option. That the AFL could not have predicted this defies logic. The eagerness to cite the vaguest physical clash means that Ballantyne and his ilk can go around serially pissing off good players and feel protected by the system as it stands. That the AFL could not have predicted this defies logic. That any number of players at other clubs have felt the need to support what Scarlett did - while naturally not condoning violence - should be a flag to the AFL that such behaviour as Ballantyne puts out every game should not be tolerated. If the AFL cannot, or will not, stop him then the likes of Hall, and now Scarlett, solving their own problem will continue - and whose fault is that? The AFL has successfully turned the game into a handicap event where some players are advantaged over others. I'm sure that was not the intention but it is the inevitable byproduct of a stamp down on physical confrontation without an appropriate attempt to limit the verbals. I happily accept that chat will always be a part of the game. It's just that I also accept that a player who runs of at the mouth should learn to duck - and if he doesn't duck in time, well, I've no great sympathy and I'm not looking to hang the guy that retaliates. As a commentator jokingly (I think) said on the weekend, "You should probably get three weeks for punching - but only one for punching Ballantyne". That seems fair.