MRP / Trib. Tom Stewart bump on Prestia - 4 weeks to freshen up

[cats_09]

Is it right that the guidance for this grading is 3+ weeks? If so I’m not sure what the aggravating factor would be to start at 4. I would also expect Geelong to argue the grading is wrong and should be ‘high’ not ‘severe’ (which I believe is associated with a 2+ week suspension guidance).

Make a statement - though normally we see that earlier in the season than after round 15

 

[Cattery]

Can you point me to the sanction table? The one I saw on Twitter yesterday had careless/high/severe as 3+ (I thought).

None of that text insists it’s a severe grading by the way.

What is does do is cover their arse in every conceivable way as far as as I can see. I thought their argument was always that the result/outcome of an incident carried a lot of weight, i.e if there's injury even from a relatively minor incident such as a tackle that will be factored into the penalty, yet here they appear to be saying the absence of injury is not a factor.
I'm no legal expert, but the wording in that text appears as if it was written by a hanging judge.

 

[Roachy8]

Not even that bad. Can't help that Prestia has a brittle glass jaw. 3 weeks

This really is not fair, or even correct.

Prestia does not have a brittle glass jaw as his jaw was not affected.
His brain however was smashing around against the inside of his skull....

 

[Spearman]

This really is not fair, or even correct.

Prestia does not have a brittle glass jaw as his jaw was not affected.
His brain however was smashing around against the inside of his skull....

how marvelously pedantic

 

[catempire]

What is does do is cover their arse in every conceivable way as far as as I can see. I thought their argument was always that the result/outcome of an incident carried a lot of weight, i.e if there's injury even from a relatively minor incident such as a tackle that will be factored into the penalty, yet here they appear to be saying the absence of injury is not a factor.
I'm no legal expert, but the wording in that text appears as if it was written by a hanging judge.

Yes, I think their position is the outcome isn’t determinative, except for those cases where it is and we will review medical reports and decide whatever we like anyway, maybe using the medical report as justification but maybe ignoring it if that’s more helpful for our gut feel.

 

[jim boy]

Can you point me to the sanction table? The one I saw on Twitter yesterday had careless/high/severe as 3+ (I thought).

None of that text insists it’s a severe grading by the way.

sure - https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/do...8e9ced332989/2022-AFL-Tribunal-Guidelines.pdf

 

[catempire]

They may argue that, but it wont happen and it will stay as severe - Firstly the guidelines state "The absence of injury does not preclude the classification of impact as Severe". Secondly, "the potential to cause injury must be factored into the determination of Impact", particularly when the contact involved "high bumps, particularly with significant head contact and/or Player momentum" and "any contact that occurs when the Victim Player should not reasonably be expecting or is not reasonably prepared for contact". As for intentional/careless "the evidence that the act provides may be so strong as to compel an inference of what his intent was, no matter what he may say about it afterwards. If the immediate consequence of an act is obvious and inevitable, the deliberate doing of the act carries with it evidence of an intention to produce the consequence."

Sanction is rated at 4+ - so minimum of 4 plus whatever the tribunal feel is needed

Found it. It‘s definitely 3+.

 

[catempire]

sure - https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/do...8e9ced332989/2022-AFL-Tribunal-Guidelines.pdf

Yeah, see below. It’s 3+.

 

[jim boy]

Yeah, see below. It’s 3+.

If it was rated careless, which it wont be.

 

[catempire]

If it was rated careless, which it wont be.

It has already been graded as careless. That’s the MRO job.

 

[cats_09]

If it was rated careless, which it wont be.

It has been rated careless

The MRO graded it as Careless conduct, High impact & Severe conduct - hence it being sent to the tribunal

But once it's sent to the tribunal the AFL can also push for a punishment they deem suitable regardless of the gradings table - the AFL are seemingly pushing for a 4/5 week suspension which is higher than the tables suggestion for the current grading

 

[Cattery]

Yes, I think their position is the outcome isn’t determinative, except for those cases where it is and we will review medical reports and decide whatever we like anyway, maybe using the medical report as justification but maybe ignoring it if that’s more helpful for our gut feel.

Pretty much sums it up I think, a bunch of meaningless legalise as I see it, heavily skewed toward getting whatever outcome they want.

 

[GoBlues!]

They may argue that, but it wont happen and it will stay as severe - Firstly the guidelines state "The absence of injury does not preclude the classification of impact as Severe". Secondly, "the potential to cause injury must be factored into the determination of Impact", particularly when the contact involved "high bumps, particularly with significant head contact and/or Player momentum" and "any contact that occurs when the Victim Player should not reasonably be expecting or is not reasonably prepared for contact". As for intentional/careless "the evidence that the act provides may be so strong as to compel an inference of what his intent was, no matter what he may say about it afterwards. If the immediate consequence of an act is obvious and inevitable, the deliberate doing of the act carries with it evidence of an intention to produce the consequence."

Sanction is rated at 4+ - so minimum of 4 plus whatever the tribunal feel is needed

Just looked at the video given all the hoo-hah in the media. What a beat up.

Prestia was in the air tapping the ball when Stewart committed to bump him…looks like Stewart was intending to bump him in the body but misjudged Prestia (a much smaller player) coming down so quickly. At best a careless act imo.

 

[STPer18]

Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't the MRO already grading this as careless a massive leg up for our lawyers? Just have Stewart act all remorseful, throw in the good bloke defence and argue severe to high and we're laughing. I've got a suit if need be.

 

[cats_09]

Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't the MRO already grading this as careless a massive leg up for our lawyers? Just have Stewart act all remorseful, throw in the good bloke defence and argue severe to high and we're laughing. I've got a suit if need be.

It was suggested on the news last night that it would be graded as careless as the MRO viewed it as a "football act" that occurred in play - so not like a swinging arm behind play where the players involved in the incident aren't involved in the passage of play

 

[Cattery]

It has been rated careless

The MRO graded it as Careless conduct, High impact & Severe conduct - hence it being sent to the tribunal

But once it's sent to the tribunal the AFL can also push for a punishment they deem suitable regardless of the gradings table - the AFL are seemingly pushing for a 4/5 week suspension which is higher than the tables suggestion for the current grading

Is this official?
No matter how bad it looked, at the end of the day it was still just a shirtfront that resulted in a concussion, no broken jaw or structural damage, so for mine three weeks seems appropriate, not sure the league will see it that way though, will probably be more concerned with the "image" it created.

 

[Willo_]

This is probably a dumb question, but i freely admit to not having the understanding maybe i should on it... but does how it is graded even matter?
Isn't it the tribunals job to work that out? Or is their job just to adjudicate on the punishment, which I don't see the point of because surely the grading table thing gives you the outcome anyway?

 

[#6 Thorp #7 Selwood LOL]

Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't the MRO already grading this as careless a massive leg up for our lawyers? Just have Stewart act all remorseful, throw in the good bloke defence and argue severe to high and we're laughing. I've got a suit if need be.

In theory, yes. In practice, the AFL have a number and will work backwards to get it. See Greene, Toby. In that case I'd say it was the right outcome though.

 

[cats_09]

This is probably a dumb question, but i freely admit to not having the understanding maybe i should on it... but does how it is graded even matter?
Isn't it the tribunals job to work that out? Or is their job just to adjudicate on the punishment, which I don't see the point of because surely the grading table thing gives you the outcome anyway?

I think it's a bit of both when it gets to the tribunal - the MRO (with AFL sign-off) gives the initial grading to work out if it's a fine, suspension or tribunal case, though for some charges they'll go straight to the tribunal without any grading

Now it's at the tribunal, both sides (GFC & AFL) will argue their cases - us doing so on the basis that Stewart is guilty of the bump but that it's high impact & not severe to get it downgraded, while the AFL may even try arguing it was intentional contact & that Stewart should be immediately deregistered (maybe a slight exaggeration)

The members of the tribunal panel will then take all that into account to determine their own grading & suspension

 

[Willo_]

I think it's a bit of both when it gets to the tribunal - the MRO (with AFL sign-off) gives the initial grading to work out if it's a fine, suspension or tribunal case, though for some charges they'll go straight to the tribunal without any grading

Now it's at the tribunal, both sides (GFC & AFL) will argue their cases - us doing so on the basis that Stewart is guilty of the bump but that it's high impact & not severe to get it downgraded, while the AFL may even try arguing it was intentional contact & that Stewart should be immediately deregistered (maybe a slight exaggeration)

The members of the tribunal panel will then take all that into account to determine their own grading & suspension

The moment i posted that I did think that maybe the MRO have made their determination, and the tribunal basically are there to assess how long it is worth, with the MRO basically setting the minimum, and given no 2 situations are identical this is there to then pull apart if this high bump is worth 3, 5, 7 (these are just random numbers I am throwing out, i don't think it is worth 5,7) etc etc etc

 

[#6 Thorp #7 Selwood LOL]

For reference, MRO deemed this to be "nothing to see here"...

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

Our record without Stewart:

2 Wins and 3 Losses

Average points conceded with Stewart 65.2
Average points conceded without Stewart 86.2


That's a bit of worry when we got Dees and Carlton coming up that put on a lot of forward pressure to our back 6.

 

[Romeoh1]

Ok- I thought he would get three weeks, but now I’m thinking he will get 4 weeks.
I can cope with that. It was a bad mistake to make.

 

[Biased99]

Stewart will likely get 3-4 weeks.

But those Richmond fans calling it a sniper act etc are off the mark.

You need to remember these incidents all take place in split seconds and at high speed.

Having seen it live and then on replay countless times, it seems to me that Tom expected Prestia to take possession of the ball. But Prestia chose not to and jumped off the ground to tap the ball to a teammate. Prestia was hit when he was still off balance which contributed to the hit being high and not shoulder to shoulder. Stewart didn’t leave the ground and had his shoulder tucked in, indicating it wasn’t a deliberate hit to the head and there was an element of poor luck for both parties in it being forcefully high.

Obviously the act was extremely poorly executed and he will deserve the suspension he gets, nobody is arguing against that, but Stewart is one of the best executors of the (legal) bump in our team and it’s exactly what he unsuccessfully tried to do here.

I'd like to believe that's true. Perhaps it's already been mentioned, but there was an incident in a match a few weeks back, where Stewart was running hard at a player (A North player?) about to get the ball. As the player grabbed the ball, Stewart bumped him, and he went to ground. But - and this is the important bit - he actually pulled up at the point of contact, so the force of the bump was significantly reduced. The commentators calling the game remarked that Stewart "looked after" the other player (i.e. he could have really run through him, but chose not to).

Still, Saturday's bump was a very bad look, no doubt. At least - from all accounts - Prestia was up and about during and after the game.


One wonders what that one bump does to the Cats' premiership chances?

 

[catempire]

This is probably a dumb question, but i freely admit to not having the understanding maybe i should on it... but does how it is graded even matter?
Isn't it the tribunals job to work that out? Or is their job just to adjudicate on the punishment, which I don't see the point of because surely the grading table thing gives you the outcome anyway?

It matters here because the grading dictates the minimum suspension. This grading is associated with 3+ weeks suspension. If it was intentional it would have been 4+. The defence is entitled to argue the grading is wrong, as we did (unsuccessfully) with Dangerfield when he had the same grading last year.