Much has been made and said of the Jack Viney suspension, but I want to raise this proposition to the AFL and football fans.
Had this been Gary Ablett and, as a result, he had missed out on the Brownlow, would it sit right with you?
Would it sit right knowing that a collision in a contact sport means a player misses out on winning the Brownlow, the game’s highest individual honour for being the best and, importantly, fairest?
The game does not tolerate acts of violence, malice or physical intent to hurt against the spirit of the game. And all players should play the game knowing that their health and wellbeing is going to be protected against this.
However, they play this game because it tests their strength, skill, courage and their physical standing on the game. As elite sportsmen, they don’t want that compromised.
What the Viney case had done is compromise those facets and go against the essence of elite sport.
If you turn your mid back to 2010, Jordan Lewis and then Bulldog Jarrod Harbrow were involved in a sickening collision. The important word here is collision.
It comprised both men having sole intention for the ball at all times. With both men approaching the ball, Harbrow decided to punch the ball and as a result collected Lewis in the head, sending him into a concussed state.
With regards to the Viney collision with Adelaide’s Tom Lynch, both men had sole intention to go for the ball at all times.
With both men approaching the ball, Viney, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to collect the ball but in a position to commit to the contest, simply braced for impact.
The tribunal’s assessment that Viney could have avoided contact by moving out of the way is a gross miss-judgement of one’s ability and the core fundamentals of our game.
We ask sports players to play on instinct. If we watch football, the roundball game that most are turning towards, it is a game that is best celebrated based on instinct acts of skill.
Wayne Rooney’s over-head goal against Manchester City, which was voted the best goal in the EPL in the last 25 years, was in all its glory, instinctive.
With very little time to think, he went into instinctive mode and was able to make calculated body movements that very few could.
The same can be applied to Viney. After watching the footage in real speed, not slow-mo and frame-by-frame footage, what else could Viney had done? He reacted on pure instinct to protect himself from oncoming traffic.
The game of AFL has changed considerably in the last 10 years and for the most part, the better.
The protection of the head is one of the greatest contributions the current AFL commission has made to the game. As much as we love violence and acts of brutality, they no longer have a place on the football field.
Like in all work places, employees have a right to feel as though their health and wellbeing is going to be protected and looked upon as a guiding principle of future decisions.
However, there is a risk in all elite contact sports, there are going to be times that accidents happen that are uncontrollable. Viney’s collision with Lynch fits into this category.
The NFL are facing its greatest test with concussion-injury class action, and has sought a settlement of $765 million. If they’re throwing around those sorts of figures it means the potential is there for that in Australian sport too.
Yet as we speak, the AFL are doing all it can to eliminate head injuries. Players have long accepted that injury is part of the game, and will continue to do so knowing that all is being done to protect against malicious acts of violence that are ‘unbecoming of the game’.
It is this phrase ‘unbecoming of the game’ that must also be taken into account.
For all that is debated, Viney’s actions were not unbecoming of the game. In fact, he fulfilled his duty of care to his fellow professional to mitigate against injury as much as he could.
Players and fans are the AFL’s number one contributor. We need players to play each week and showcase strength, skill, courage and physicality.
It is the reason why we as fans go to the game to support our club, knowing that the better the players carry out these fundamentals, the greater the chance of victory.
It is the very reason why the AFL must act now and amend its decision to suspend Viney, and look at its current rules, as the game of AFL will be better for it not worse.
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