It’s Andrew Gaff week, and while I’d prefer to be discussing him in the context of a Brownlow Medal win or premiership victory, the reality is neither of these are now possible in 2018.
Every football writer is duty bound to say their piece about the Gaff situation this week. Plenty of ground has already been covered: Gaff is a good person who did a terrible thing, Andrew Brayshaw didn’t deserve it, the eight-week penalty is about right, the police didn’t get involved but could have, etcetera etcetera.
Football is a team game with 44 players able to influence the outcome, but the loss of Gaff will dent West Coast’s premiership ambitions for this year. He has been the fulcrum of a midfield which has seen plenty of disruption in season 2018, be it the retirement of long-term workhorse Matt Priddis, the return and exit of Nic Naitanui, and injuries to his running mates (principally Luke Shuey).
Andrew Gaff of the Eagles (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
The Eagles now face the prospect of being without three of their best (maybe their three best) players for a crucial stretch of the season given Josh Kennedy’s minor leg injury gets less minor by the day. You’ve read that take too I’m sure.
There is a need to go further, and that is to discuss the AFL’s judicial system and approach to policing acts of violence on the field.
This is not a call for a red card – again, you’ve read that take – though given the means by which the AFL is examining every other aspect of the code it must be doing its diligence on this as well. The fact of the matter is the AFL experiences a significant act of violence like Gaff’s once or twice a year.
It is not endemic to the code; no one is completing the football equivalent of diving at an opponents shins (soccer), ramming helmet first into an unsuspecting ball carrier (American football) or attacking vulnerable fullbacks in mid air by tunnelling them (the rugby codes) on a regular basis.
No, what the AFL needs is to address something more fundamental in nature: the AFL needs to take action to stamp out all non-football acts of aggression and violence.
Striking, tripping, jumper punches, rogue elbows and forearms, anything that is outside of the act of legally competing for the football or defending your opponent from doing so has to be stamped out of the game.
Gaff said it himself: he meant to punch Brayshaw, but in the chest not the face. That he connected with Brayshaw’s jaw was merely an outcome – the intent was to strike, and that is what must be eliminated from the game.
The AFL’s judicial system has evolved over time to its current form, where the penalty handed down is most dictated by outcome, not intent. Take Hawthorn’s Daniel Howe’s tripping incident with Carlton’s Zac Fisher: his leg flicked out as countless others have before him to have been cited for tripping, but because he caught him so flush Fisher’s leg broke his penalty was amplified significantly.
Instead of a fine of $1,500 (0.4 per cent of the average AFL player’s salary – or about the equivalent of a mid level speeding fine for someone on the average Australian wage, but that’s another story for another time), Howe was banned for three matches.
Ditto Gaff’s strike. If Gaff had struck where he intended, he might’ve been on the pine for a week, if not been let off with a fine. As it was, because the outcome of the strike was so severe, his penalty was amplified.
But that is the secondary point. The fact of the matter is what Gaff did is the prime example of a non-football act. It was something that is not at all related to the play, that does nothing but invite the potential for disaster as we experienced this past weekend. No one benefits from strikes, trips, jumper punches or rogue elbows and forearms. All it does it invite opportunities for incidents like Gaff’s to arise.
Andrew Brayshaw (Photo by Will Russell/AFL Media/Getty Images)
That is in no way an excuse for his action. Not in the slightest. And from Gaff’s reaction to the incident it is crystal clear he is full of remorse and disappointment in himself. It is to say there is an unwritten code within Australian rules football that says it’s ok to punch so long as it isn’t too hard and it isn’t to a spot that has the potential to cause the opposition player a moderate to serious injury. That is what must change.
No other sport in the world would say striking an opponent “in the upper chest or neck area” is A-OK. They would say that’s a punch. And if you punch someone in any sport – even the extraordinarily violent National Football League in the United States – you’re gone. Our domestic approach to the action is a relic of a by-gone era and it is time the league moved with the times.
This requires reform to the league’s judicial arm. At a very basic level, the AFL should introduce a new classification of reportable offences, for what I would call ‘non-football actions’. These are acts that are outside of the legal means to contest the ball or defend your opponent: strikes, intentional trips, jumper punches and the like.
These acts should carry far heftier penalties than ‘football actions’ like rough conduct or high bumps, which are 99 per cent of the time the by-product of a careless move on the part of the perpetrator.
It’s arbitrary – we’ve all played the “I think this is worth that” game this week – but any non-football action should carry with it a base penalty of at least one week’s suspension. Crudely: you strike someone, you will miss next week’s game. If you grab an opponent’s jumper and push back in a punching motion you will miss next week’s game.
Perhaps it should be two weeks as a base, who really knows. The point is, the intent of the action must be punished proportionally to the outcome.
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There are inherent grey areas in all of this, but there always has been greys and there always will be greys. It is not possible to codify everything – indeed, that was what led to the current system, after the desire to place every incident into a neat box on a matrix collapsed confidence in the system was lost. All we are seeking to do here is draw a very clear line around what is part of football and what is not.
If you don’t like the match review finding that you have executed a non-football action? Challenge it at the tribunal. Prove that you didn’t strike the person you struck.
The AFL’s own little ‘law and order’ set up has become a farce at times this year, with legal counsel for the league attempting to play a game of gotcha with the seriousness of the OJ Simpson trial. But all told, it is hard to argue any incident that has gone before the Tribunal has been resolved incorrectly in 2018. This aspect of the AFL’s judicial reform has mostly worked well and as intended.
But to date, the AFL has continued to ignore its tacit endorsement of strikes and other non-football actions. These acts have no place in modern football. If any good can come out of Andrew Gaff’s strike on Andrew Brayshaw, it is that the AFL will realise its approach to this issue must be addressed.
Could this extend further? The AFL has made it clear through all its “state of the game” talk that it wants the best and most skilful players afforded the time and space to do what they do best.
We see week in week out the best players are held, impeded, scragged and cajoled away from the ball, or right before the ball is in play. These, again, are inherently non-football actions, albeit of a far less extreme nature than putting your fist through your opponent’s chest. This, too, is something of a piece of nostalgia that has hung on for no reason other than it is what we’ve always done.
I don’t write this to be a reactionary. It is a long held belief of mine that the AFL doesn’t get it right when it comes to actions on the field that have nothing to do with playing football. The Andrew Gaff incident is merely an opportunity to start that conversation. I hope HQ seizes that opportunity.
Macca
Guest
Dalgety - "and how is misquoting myself copying it direct from the text?" Hmm let me see, you quoted this bit; "“Extracting all of those physical and combative actions out of all barring a 5-metre radius" clearly is not the same as " and then you quoted this bit "“getting rid of all physical actions out of all barring a 5-metre radius of the ball”. See how the second bit you put in quotation marks is not the same as the first bit in quotation marks? That is called a misquote. In this case it is done to create a straw man by dropping a couple of key words to make the argument easier to defeat. “I said there was no evidence of on video of any untoward physical attention and he was frequently in plenty of space. ” Seems mine isn't the only recall that is vague - your claim of what you said is less accurate than mine. And given there is video evidence it is a strange comment to make when you never actually made it.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Hahaha I knew you would try to retreat into the vague recall ploy.Typical shonkiness from you Macca. A rolled gold example that defines you to the core. You: "do you mean like your claim that no one had gone near Gaff all day" Me: "I said there was no evidence of on video of any untoward physical attention and he was frequently in plenty of space. " You (doubling down): "No Dalgety you said no one went near Gaff all day" Classic...and how is misquoting myself copying it direct from the text? Just keep saying stuff. hahaha
Slane
Guest
An unwatchable sport is the most watched sport.
Slane
Guest
If you jumped on my shoulders and took a hanger on the street you'd be arrested, too.
Macca
Guest
Dalgety - see that bit in quotation marks, it is a direct quote from you, I post it again; "Dalgety Carrington said | August 7th 2018 @ 12:08pm Gaff ran around in plenty of space for most of Sunday’s game" I was paraphrasing from memory when I said "no one went near Gaff all day" but while the phrasing is slightly different the meaning is exactly the same - you suggested Gaff wasn't targeted, the vision shows otherwise. As for the strawman - you are still clearly doing the textbook definition. By trying to go down this "no leeway", where do we stop "vagueness" line you are clearly "intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument". Even when you quote yourself you deliberately misquote to try and bolster a losing argument. In dropping the words "those" and " combative" in your statement "Which surely is advocating for “getting rid of all physical actions out of all barring a 5-metre radius of the ball”. Is it not?" you change the meaning significantly to "misrepresent the proposition" Further when people are following up this thread they could also see my quotes "you are the only one setting up a straw man “no leeway” “blanket” approach to all contact, umpires being human will always have the power of interpretation", " no one Is advocating “enforcing the rules (without leeway)”, "Of course if you drill far enough and take things to the extreme you will get into grey areas but no one is suggesting anything that aggressive." You really should embarrassing yourself now.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Quote. It. Frawdster. Doubling down on the strawman thing again (to scuttle away from your spurious accusations?) eh? You do realise people can just go up and follow a thread for themselves? You surely can't believe the stuff you write. Now first there's been a lot of arguments that are vague and do say they want to cut out all the "off-the-ball rubbish", That level of vagueness can't be straw-manned. It's not straw-manning to explore the limits of the vagueness and/or to caution against such generalities. Second, right underneath my first post you copied and wrote: “Extracting all of those physical and combative actions out of all barring a 5-metre radius of the ball would require a level of policing that seems pretty unpalatable.” Only until behaviour changes – and that will happen pretty quick when free kicks and suspensions start getting thrown around. Which surely is advocating for "getting rid of all physical actions out of all barring a 5-metre radius of the ball". Is it not? lol I can only think this "straw man" is a "you too" accusation is solely to distract from you not being able to follow or produce a reasonable argument. To finish: QUOTE IT.
Macca
Guest
The ball is travelling from a slow play from a free kick on the back flank down the line to the forward flank, there should be one umpire roughly where the ball starts from, one roughly where it will land and one in the middle, the ball is 20m in the air pretty much directly above the incident and you think no umpire should have had a line of sight on the incident because "there's quite a bit to keep track of"? You have clearly given up on any pre-tense of logic.
Macca
Guest
Quote it "Gaff ran around in plenty of space for most of Sunday’s game." "straw man noun: straw man; plural noun: straw men; noun: strawman; plural noun: strawmen 1. an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument" ie trying to claim the argument involves "no leeway" when you are the only one making that claim.
Cat
Roar Guru
Become? It’s always been.
christy olsen
Roar Rookie
Yeah, soccer has become almost unwatchable because of all the diving and whining.
christy olsen
Roar Rookie
Be careful, people. It's one thing to try to get rid of punches, which are not at all part of the game. But if you start trying to force the game to be played a certain way through an ever-growing rule book, the game will be ruined. Tagging is a completely legit tactic. There's nothing illegal or unsporting about it. Yes, it makes it difficult for the one being tagged to get the ball. And, yes, if the tagger is engaging in illegal actions (like obstruction and holding), he should be penalised. But so often we've seen a completely legal tactic become popular, then be banned or regulated, mostly because it's too effective. That's not a good reason to ban something. If a particular tactic is both legal and effective, then just deal with it. Overcome it. It's very rare to find a tactic in sports that is all reward with no risk. In those rare cases, it is identified very early on and banned. Parking a player in front of the goal in soccer is a good example. There's really no risk, and every team would do it, if allowed. Thus, the off-sides rule has been in place for a long time. Tagging has risk. The tagger is rendered nearly useless as a ball-user, and generally gets run into the ground trying to stay with his man. The reward is he might limit his opponent's impact. As long as there is a risk, let a player or team try to earn the reward. Let their opponents find a way make them regret it.
asd
Guest
thug
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Or there could be a reason (there's quite a lot to keep track of). But just post better. ?
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
The act was he punched someone in the face. Quite hard.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Quote it. And going by the above you definitely have no idea what a straw man is. Strange, you use them so often. Couldn't be another parlour trick, could it? ?
asd
Guest
Gaffa is a Idiot . a deliberate attack thats not AFL period
User
Roar Rookie
Macca my view exactly, those gravitating to the statements of a young man under duress are only doing so to feel self righteous. These ppl will probably question Andrews forgiveness as well
Macca
Guest
There are 3 umpires on the ground, 1 should have been side on to the incident and the other two should have been watching from either Ned of the ground, there really is no reason why one of the 3 didn't see a new incident that happened directly under the flight path of the ball.
Macca
Guest
Just because you don't reach perfection doesn't mean you should stop striving for it. Once again you seem to be arguing not to try because it is too hard.
Macca
Guest
No Dalgety you said no one went near Gaff all day - the evidence shows he was clearly targeted. And I am saying arguing a point not in contention as a reason not to crack down on punchin, holding etc is the definition of a straw man. Of course if you drill far enough and take things to the extreme you will get into grey areas but no one is suggesting anything that aggressive. The only thing being discussed is implementing the current rules as they were designed for the reasons they were introduced. You are the only person to talk about there not being leeway in order to build your straw man