The alternative for Bedford is to not lay a tackle.Gws should go to the appeal tribunal and say what else was the player to do in that situation,get the afl to explain to all of us what they want, as right now this is ridiculous
Players have a requirement to show a duty of care to the player they're tackling. Bedford has to dive at Taranto in order to catch him in the tackle. It means Bedford no longer has any control of the tackle, which means he's being reckless. He's not in a situation to protect Taranto at all as he takes him to ground.
What Bedford needs to do is not dive at the opponent to lay the tackle. People have suggested that Bedford's tackle was similar to Dangerfield's. But its not, because the flog from Geelong never dove forwards with his body. He's always in a position wear he can try and provide protection to Walsh. He doesn't drive Walsh's head into the ground, so he wasn't being careless.
Its shit, and the AFL would be removing the desperate diving tackle. But thats what they want because they are potentially dangerous because the tackler has no way to protect the player being tackled. And they'd need to stop celebrating these tackles when the tackler gets lucky and doesn't cause the opponents head to hit the ground.