Are you from the old school which forever asserts modern footy’s gone soft? Do you feel infuriated at a game too quick to punish players for no more than old-fashioned hard-but-fair tackles?
Did you think Ryan Nyhuis’ dumping of Robbie Gray last Sunday in Perth was perfectly within the laws of the game, or, at worst, just lacking a little duty of care?
Were you frustrated at the three-week suspension imposed on Nyhuis – bearing in mind that he did what footballers have always done: inflicted a bit of pain while stopping a player with the ball from using it to his team’s advantage?
Are you as mad as hell and feeling inclined to not take it anymore?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions you really should think again. For your thinking is now totally dated and discredited.
The AFL, for its own sake, not just that of those playing the game, absolutely must impose stiff penalties on players who carelessly cause head injuries.
Here’s why.
The week before last, the 2017 injury survey was released. This is an annual exercise that categorises and puts numbers on the various injury-types. The AFL has been providing an annual summary of its injury figures for 26 years.
Once, not so long ago, it was the knee joint that drew most attention. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries continue to be dreaded by players and their clubs as they mean an almost mandatory period of a season on the sidelines.
Some players have come back earlier, startlingly so in rare cases, but it’s usually a year. Then there’s the trepidation that goes with the return. Heartbreaking recurrences happen not infrequently.
Sydney’s Alex Johnson still hasn’t played an AFL game since the Swans’ 2012 grand final victory.
Yet, as serious and demoralising as such injuries are, the knee has been well and truly overtaken as the red-flag zone on the footballer’s body. That label is now reserved for the head.
And well it might be, as a bad knee – though it might restrict a person’s freedom of movement, and even cause some ongoing discomfort in later life – doesn’t have anything like the potential for impairment that repeated head knocks do.
As American football has taught us, a sport that doesn’t do enough to protect its players from head injuries could one day find itself paying out lots of money.
Here’s what the AFL’s survey of injuries from the 2017 season reported on concussion:
‘Concussion rates remain relatively stable with approximately seven injuries per team per year (all diagnosed concussions, not just those that cause missed matches). The incidence and prevalence of concussions causing matches to be missed appears to have levelled off in 2017…’
The glass-half-full way in which this aspect of the survey is expressed almost makes things sound okay. You read it and think ‘well, seven a club’s not too bad over a long and arduous season,’ and it’s not getting worse.
Well, it wouldn’t want to. For, as an American might say, ‘do the math’. Seven concussions per club per season, in an eighteen-team competition, computes to 126 concussions across the competition in a year of football.
That’s 126 brain injuries a year in an industry with a specific work-force of just under 800!
That’s not a frightening figure. It’s worse. At this rate, if every concussion is inflicted upon a different player, around 16 per cent of the work-force would suffer one each year.
But, of course, it’s not the case that these injuries are shared around that evenly. There are many cases of players receiving more than one concussion in a season.
Lance Franklin-Shane Mumford collision
This is even more concerning, because it’s the repeat injuries that are more likely to lead to problems in life-after-football for those unlucky enough to suffer them.
When you think about it, any industry other than a contact sport which brought about concussions at such a rate would quickly find itself under serious investigation. While that’s not to argue that such should apply to footy, given that players sign on knowing it’s a gladiatorial game, 126 concussions in a season is way too many.
The tendency for administrators and football tragics will be to say there have always been lots of concussions and it’s only now that they are being disclosed. But I’m not sure whether this is a totally honest assessment.
Having broadcast the game in Melbourne since the start of the 1980s, my recollection is of seeing very few players knocked out in those early years. Yes, there were more brutal tactics employed at times, but there were fewer high-speed collisions in the run of play.
Furthermore, tacklers were less leniently treated by umpires in those years. Today’s football is more collision-oriented, leading to much more ‘incidental’ high contact and, not infrequently, injurious head knocks.
If this is so, those responsible for the management of the on-field game should be taking a harder line on careless play that leads to head injuries, not a softer one.
So, next time you howl abuse at an umpire for paying a high-contact free kick when you felt there ‘was nothing in it’, bear in mind it’s actually important that limitations be imposed on the tackler.
Not only do such limitations protect the ball player, they also protect the game from the threat of legal liability that 126 concussions-per-year might one day bring.
Judy H
Guest
Does channel 7 now own the Geelong footy club as well as the AFL. Only one team on the field tonight. Good Lord Umpire cam????
Lroy
Guest
Again, its not a sling tackle its just a tackle. Re your comment about the courts, you just repeated what I had already said, i.e. the courts wont get involved if its within the rules. Injuries to heads and necks, head high contact has been banned. This player wasnt hit head high, he hit his head on the ground, completely different scenario. The question people like you have to ask your self (and really, I dont know why this is such a hard thing to grasp) is this; ''at what point in the tackle could the tackler have changed his motion or action to prevent the final outcome''. If you can't answer that all your wailing and bleating is irrelevant.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Apart from the reality; you always respond as you just have. A strange form of not 'bother(ing)'. Your comments never initiate a new conversation, they are always put down responses to the initiatives of others. The funny thing is, because you are not very balanced, your attempts at put downs are as effective as a comment from Jonboy. I notice you just edited your comment. You must have re-read your error. This is what you just deleted: "Author: Cat 11:41 (21 minutes ago) Comment: I don't bother to respond to you for the same reason I refuse to engage macca anymore. You two are the same." Oh dear. On your new comment, where is the suggestion I am making any excuse about any team, let alone, Freo? You are becoming manic in your attempts to score a point.
Cat
Roar Guru
Always someone else fault for your team being crap yet again. Injuries, umpires, MRO, this is just another in a long list of deflections and excuses.
Cat
Roar Guru
I don't bother to respond to you for the same reason I refuse to engage macca anymore. You two are the same.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
No. The umpires are calling players to play on when they haven't moved off their marks. Umpires can also work on their geometry. The angles they put players on when lining up for goal are strange. Their first rule is to increase the angle by 5 degrees. Set the mark where the mark is taken.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Which category? Going for the impressive sounds Cat? You haven't responded to the idea that I was calling for Danger's blood? Couldn't find the link? That's because it didn't happen. Wrong, yet again. Wrong on this one too. Keep watching and you'll eventually get a handle on it all.
Cat
Roar Guru
When Don agrees with you, you know you are categorically wrong.
Cat
Roar Guru
The time a player gets after taking a mark or being awarded a free kick has not changed. What has changed is the umpires are correctly (finally) calling play on quickly when the player in possession move laterally off the mark.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Yep. Cat has been having a bad month. Once again, it is the lesser names that are in the umpires' sights. The big names get time, the no-names are called to play on before they even get back to their mark.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
You're watching a different game than the rest of us then. Umpires constantly have told players to move it on, this season the amount of time the umpire waits has reduced.
Cat
Roar Guru
Its up to the player to not move off their mark. The player is in full control of whether play on is quickly called or not.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
If it's about collisions then the AFL can be pro active and stop telling players to play on, 3 seconds after a mark or free. The speed of the game has been artificially increased by umpire direction. Reduce the speed, reduce the impact. Might even have the added bonus of players being able to kick straight from 10m in front of a 7m wide gap! Either way, a more attractive game with the added benefit of safety, instead of the current rolling maul.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
That's the problem. The AFL has gone soft on the things we want to rub out and hard on the incidental stuff. One week for the sling and 4 weeks for the elbow or shoulder to the head. Then the priorities are right.
Pedro The Fisherman
Roar Rookie
Walker got 1 match?
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Maggie, it has always been illegal to hit someone in the head in play. They didn't even give a free kick. Hamling was knocked out. Strange that you are happy with that. Why would I change my spiel? This might be the first time you have not been objective.
Maggie
Guest
No Don isn’t right about Franklin (although he has been going on and on about the incident ever since it happened). Franklin’s elbow hit was a total accident as a result of him swinging around to try to shake a tackle with the ball tucked under his arm which caused his elbow to be angled out from his body. (I suggest Don tucks a football under his arm and checks what happens to his elbow.) It was an accident, no cheap shot, and rightly recognised as such by the MRO. Don won’t change his spiel though I’m sure.
Jon Boy
Guest
It was not necessary for Nyhuis to sling him full stop he made a copy book tackle, Gray disposed of the ball incorrectly free kick .Simple don't throw them on the ground, hold the tackle. Throwing players on the ground creates the ugly congestion we have nowadays, this did not happen years ago and that is why they want to change the rules again .Umpiring has not helped in this area as well.
JamesH
Roar Guru
I was surprised Walker got off but I didn't see Franklin's, Don. You might well be right.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Given the fact he had his arm free I'm not sure how it can hold no water. Nevertheless, my point was that the speed and tangle of the movement made it fairly difficult for Gray to brace with his arm. Certainly he could of made an appreciable difference if he brought his arm to firmly brace at chest level, but that's beside the point I made