It's not easy being Lindsay

It was not my plan today to write about Lindsay Thomas. In fact, I was planning to ask the question, who is the AFL’s most improved player in 2016? (The answer, if you’re wondering, is Aaron Young.)

However after Brad Scott’s revelations following last night’s game, I decided the time had come to speak my piece about Lindsay, and about the issue of high contact frees and those footballers who play for them.

If you missed Scott’s words, here they are, as they were said at his post-match press conference:

“I know he is (unfairly treated), because the umpires told our players that, (saying) ‘Well, he’s a ducker, so we don’t pay high free kicks to Lindsay’,” said Scott, responding to a question on the topic.

“They told our guys that, so that’s clearly a preconceived idea.

“You just want the umpires to umpire what they see, not their preconceived ideas.

“That’s for (umpires boss) Hayden Kennedy to deal with, not for me, I’m just telling you what happened because they won’t tell you, that’s for sure.”

Now, let’s not try and deny anything here at all: Lindsay Thomas is a ducker, Lindsay Thomas does stage for free kicks. I don’t think you’ll find any reasonable football person who would say otherwise.

However, the degree to which that aspect of his game has come to define him in the eyes of many, and how it has led to him being widely condemned and made him the face of this much larger issue, is a punishment wildly out of proportion with the crime.

Footballers playing for high contact free kicks is an issue that goes far beyond any individual player. It’s probably the biggest issue the AFL faces right now, a debate that regularly flares up and a problem for which, at the moment, there appears to be no practical answer.

It’s essentially a conflict between two of the most important principles in our game. The first is player welfare, the second is maintaining the watchability of this sport.

How many times in this year alone have you been watching a great play – fast, exciting footy – only for it to be ruined by the blow of an umpire’s whistle for a free kick that we see, on the replay, was clearly the fault of the recipient rather than the dealer? Too many, no doubt.

This is the problem that most fans have with this issue – many feel it threatens to ruin the game. There are other free kicks and rule interpretations that are problematic, but this one seems to crop up more than most.

The reason for that is the importance of player welfare. Given what we now know about the long-term effects of concussion, this is one rule that the AFL cannot tell umpires to dial down or back off on.

In addition to the genuine duty of care the AFL seeks to show for its players, the potential legal ramifications are also huge. If the AFL is ever taken to court over a player sustaining long-term damage from concussion, it has to be able to say: we have always banned this, this has always been illegal, we have never said this was okay.

(This, if you’re wondering, may well be the reason why Tom Hawkins was suspended last week and Tom J Lynch wasn’t. Both struck their opponent, one got theirs in the gut, the other got theirs on the chin.)

Now the simple answer is to make playing for these free kicks illegal and pay free kicks the other way. Seems a simple solution, right? And these incidences are fairly easy to spot when you’ve got a close-up view from the TV camera best angled to follow the action, not to mention mutli-angle replays and slow-mo to follow.

That’s not the case for umpires on the ground, however. They can’t watch a replay, they can’t zoom in, they can’t change their viewing angle in the blink of an eye. They’ve got no slow-mo. They’ve got to make a split-second call based on limited evidence, and so long as that’s the case there is always going to be a significant margin of error involved.

Given that reality, most rules are only enforced when the umpire feels they’ve got a very clear view of what’s happening. Not so high-contact free kicks, for the reasons discussed above – the AFL cannot afford to let these slide, because the potential consequences are just too big. Generally, it’s been a case of “when in doubt, pay it” on this rule.

Players have taken advantage of that, so very many. Yep, Lindsay does it. So does Joel Selwood. So would Scott Selwood, if he was fit at the moment. So does Luke Shuey. So does Paul Puopolo. So does Toby McLean. So does Rhys Mathieson. So did James Sicily last night, kicking two of his five goals from this exact situation. So do dozens, hundreds of players, too many to mention.

Is there a way to fix this problem, so that the AFL can successfully honour its commitment to player welfare, while fans can also enjoy a game free of footballers playing for high contact frees?

I’m not sure there is. If there is, I definitely don’t know what it is – though I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more players wearing Caleb Daniel-style helmets, nor would I mind seeing the AFL break out a few two-week-minimum suspensions for staging and playing for frees to send a message.

So what has the AFL world done, in the absence of a real solution to this pressing problem? We’ve done what humanity is so very good at, we’ve found a scapegoat and we’re crucifying him.

Football fans and the football media have created a witch-hunt feedback loop, a chicken-and-egg situation where the media reports on Lindsay playing for a free, the fans hungrily devour it and beg for more, and the click-hungry media is only too happy to supply.

That’s problematic, but it’s hard to stop. People are always going to be people and the media is always going to be the media. There’s not a whole lot you can do about it.

However what is really concerning is when the reactionary AFL decides, as it so very often does, to kowtow to public opinion and take knee-jerk actions on the fly in response to whatever it is being criticised for this week.

Take for example this week’s investigation into the Etihad surface following Daniel Menzel’s comments last week. This has been a problem that the AFL has been aware of for years and is only now taking action on.

Or how about the shot clock? After being used in an entirely legal way on a single occasion, the AFL decided this was too much and altered the concept mid-season. By the way, did anyone else notice that despite the fact it’s not supposed to anymore, the shot clock still showed up in the final two minutes of the quarter last night?

So what has happened this time? Has the AFL thought to themselves, “right, maybe if we tell our umpires to not pay frees to this one specific player, then that will make people happy?” We can only guess at what goes on behind closed doors at AFL house, but I don’t think too many of us would be surprised if this were shown to be the case.

If that’s what you’re thinking, AFL, I’ve got something to tell you: that’s a rubbish solution, and it’s never going to work. All you are doing is encouraging your fans and your own officials to be prejudiced towards and vilify the players whose welfare you claim to hold in high regard.

At the end of the day, Lindsay is just a bloke who plays football for a living. It’s not fair for him to be the face of this league-wide issue when he is just doing what so many other players have been doing long before he was in the game, and will continue to do long after he is out of it.

I applaud his courage. How long would you last at your job if every week there was a set aside three-hour period where a live crowd of tens of thousands of people hurl abuse at you? Not too long, I imagine.

I support Lindsay. Not just as one of my favourite footballers, but as a fellow human being. Yeah he’s not perfect, but neither am I (as a fully grown adult I once set a microwave on fire, and the other day when I woke up I tried to wear my shirt on my legs). Neither are you, I’m betting. So lay off the bloke.

On the off chance he’s somehow reading this, mate, I hope you know that I among many others will forever be in your corner. And just by the way, those goals you kicked from the pocket last night made me leap off the couch and scare the living daylights out of my dog.

And to the AFL – please, stop being so reactionary, tackle this issue with a level head, and don’t let umpires become prejudiced against specific players. If you continue down this road of allowing fan and media outrage to dictate policy – well, I’m betting that journey has a very ugly end.