Cotchin’s bump highlights the uselessness of the MRP

The AFL world breathed a collective sigh of relief on Monday afternoon when the news was announced that Trent Cotchin had no case to answer for his bump on Dylan Shiel, rendering him eligible to play in Saturday’s grand final.

From the moment the incident occurred, debate raged in-person and on social media about whether Cotchin would be suspended by the much plagued Match Review Panel. From my perspective, the right decision has been made, but ironically, it is a correct decision that will sink the MRP, not a wrong one.

Over the course of Saturday night, Sunday and a lot of Monday, the debate about this particular bump has been about whether it is right that someone misses the final dance because of a bump like that. While I’m (strangely) glad that Cotchin will be leading his side onto the MCG, herein lies the issue.

A bump like Cotchin’s is what footy fans go to see. Shiel has said that he feels “cheated by the system,” but he shouldn’t – he was just second to the footy. Cotchin’s was a hard-at-the-footy, fuelled by competitive desire bump that stirs the loins of football fans.

There was no malice involved, this was a bump from a man who wanted the ball more, who wanted to win more, who wanted to inspire his team, who wanted a premiership medallion more. For football fans, this is how you want the players from your team, the captain of your team no less, to perform on the big stage.

Their commitment and hardness at the footy rewards your commitment and obsession with the team they play for. As a neutral supporter watching Saturday’s prelim, I almost stood and applauded Cotchin’s sheer power of will to win that football.

Efforts like Cotchin’s are what football legends are built on, so too the romance of this amazing game, and what will inspire a new generation of football fans.

For years, the fact that such a bump has been penalised by the MRP time and time again has been the frustration of the average footy fan who pines for the good old days, the time when footy was hard. So why now the frustration towards the MRP when the ‘right’ decision has been made.

(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)

There’s little doubt that if the Cotchin bump had taken place during the regular home-and-away season, Cotchin would be preparing himself for at least a week’s rest. Even if the bump was classed as low-grade and negligent, Cotchin would be sitting in the stands for a match given his priors.

Certainly, there are countless examples of players from other teams being rubbed out for less, much to the chagrin of AFL supporters. To the letter of the law that has been enforced throughout the last few seasons, Cotchin should be occupying the Bob Murphy seat this Saturday.

However, despite the obvious and unintelligible precedent the MRP has set for itself, Cotchin will be leading the Yellow and Black army on the AFL’s day of days. It seems that the decision not to make Cotchin front the MRP has been made in order to save face, rather than to police the game, as is it’s mandate.

Perhaps for it’s own physical safety, the MRP has made a decision that breaks the rules it created itself.

All year, and for a few before, players have been given suspensions of weeks at a time for more innocuous bumps than that. We’ve fawned over multiple-angle replays of incidents, over and over and over still, arguing like footy barristers over the innocence or guilt of a player who has dished out a decent hit in a high contact sport.

Was it reckless, or was it negligent (even though they’re the same thing) contact? Was it his head or his shoulder? Did he duck? These were the questions that drove footy talk shows.

Intentional or not, all that work has now been undone in one selfish, hypocritical decision. Whether you think its the right thing to do or whether you see it as a sign of the softness of modern football, the plight of the MRP has been cracking down on head high contact through a draconian enforcement policy, an organisation possessed by a concussion-free society.

Any high contact beyond a slight feather has been deemed unacceptable, and their pedantic decisions have been used to set the standards of acceptable and unacceptable high contact. By allowing Cotchin to play, they’ve now created a precedent that may be used against them. They’ve undone everything they were trying to achieve.

We keep talking about how ‘it wouldn’t be right to miss a grand final because of it’, and we’re right to say so. We, the footy loving public, know deep in our hearts that there was nothing wrong with Cotchin’s bump. It was hard, and fair, and Dylan Shiel got hurt. It happens in footy!

That being said, what applies for one, applies for all, and if players have missed during the season for similar or less, the MRP have bent the rules for a player so that he can play on that special day.

Yes, a grand final means more, means the most, but the rules of the game still apply. Something is not more or less serious because there’s a grand final at stake. Why didn’t they bend the rules for Dangerfield, given he was a front runner for the Brownlow?

Surely, next time a player gets hauled in front of the MRP on a slightly controversial bump, where they catch an opposition player slightly higher than the shoulders, their representative will pop in a DVD of the Cotchin bump – hell, they’ll probably just get YouTube out on their phone – and say “you let him off, you’ve gotta let that bloke off too,”.

That player will be out on the park the following weekend. By allowing Cotchin to play, they have now rendered themselves useless. How can the footy loving public, or even the AFL for that matter, trust this flawed system that has now contradicted itself into redundancy?

The end of the MRP has been a long time coming, and hopefully it’s not just Dylan Shiel that Cotchin benched that Saturday afternoon.