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Agonised over the decision... Or Warren Tredrea had to fight aganist the AFL plants to demand that its done.
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Agonised over the decision... Or Warren Tredrea had to fight aganist the AFL plants to demand that its done.
Yeah, sure, but if it was found that there is no evidence of high contact before Rankine hit the ground, we may be able to pull it back a week. Maybe even 2 weeks, if the AFL is at all concerned about being questioned about the poor quality of the evidence put forward (and not until the actual hearing) that they used to justify a longer ban.I would actually like to have video forensics with split camera angles, showing frame by frame to prove or disprove it. Or maybe Laura can invest in microchips in players shoulders.
But no doubt if it was shown that there was no illegal contact they will fall back on the "his head hit the ground and you are responsible so we still get to pick the number"
I think we are more submissive to the AFL in general , we have been forever.I have no idea why we, and to some extent clubs in general, are so submissive in the tribunal.
The AFL treats it like a murder trial and we treat it like a high school debate. I would love to see us directly challenge some of the statements made.
If the AFL are so comfortable about contact being made to the 'upper shoulder' then prove it. I haven't seen any videos that suggest that. The umpires at the ground didn't see it that way.
What is the charge. Where is the evidence. This is democracy manifest!
They obviously didn't take Houstons remorse into consideration when they went in wanting 5 weeks , Houston apologized and he still got 5 weeks? Every other player has had a week subtracted for this. Not Dan.
It's a "preferred club" discount.Jordan DeGoey of all people gets a good bloke discount for running past the ball to snipe, and Dan Houston doesn't. Sort of makes it seem like the good bloke discount isn't actually for good blokes at all.
It's only illegal because Rankine didn't get up.Why is it unreasonable to make a legal bump?
Was it just the vibe?
not to mention that they basically graded home and away games the same as finalsThey obviously didn't take Houstons remorse into consideration when they went in wanting 5 weeks , Houston apologized and he still got 5 weeks? Every other player has had a week subtracted for this. Not Dan.
Great post. Reasoned, logical, articulated well (and simply), and it points out obvious facts and strategies that don't appear (at least at first sight, albeit we weren't there to actually witness it) to have been followed through.The first question is, What is the charge? (eating a succulent Chinese meal! RIP).
But in all seriousness, although they call this list non-exhaustive, one must look at it to decipher whether the conduct is firstly a reportable offence.
Forceful front on contact:
Requires:
The opponent to have his head over the ball.
Criteria not met.
Rough conduct (High Bumps):
Requires:
In the bumping of an opponent (whether reasonable or unreasonably) the Player causes contact that is at least low impact to be made with any part of his body to an opponent’s head or neck (top of shoulders also included).
Arguments
Criteria not met.
- Supporting witnesses, 2 field umpires in direct vicinity of incident and now Ray Chamberlain who was 60/70 metres away who says he had a great line of sight, all said it was contact to front of chest and front of shoulder, no free-kick paid.
- On video analysis, on the balance of probabilities, the Tribunal simply cannot be reasonably satisfied that high contact was made.
Rough Conduct (bumps to the body):
Requires:
Arguments
- The conduct of the offender was unreasonable in the circumstances.
- They will take into account:
- The degree of force applied by the person bumping was excessive for the situation;
- The player being bumped was in a vulnerable position;
- The player could have reasonable expect the contact having regard to his involvement in the play or ability to influence the contest.
Before moving to the grading, I am simply not satisfied that any criteria relating to one of the relevant reportable offences has been met. The bump is legal still, and if executed correctly and without meeting the criteria set above, one simply cannot be reported for it. Having said this, the Tribunal rules indicate this is not an exhaustive list, and they are likely, if this argument was actually put forward, to make up some other charge.
- It was not a marking contest, wherever the ball landed it was a “play-on” situation, thus Rankine as an AFL standard player could have reasonably expected that he was going to be met by contact. It was not a situation where the players were unsure of whether the ball had been touched or not, it was a clear double fist from Mark Kean, and it was always going to be play on.
- The bump, is not “illegal” in the eyes of the AFL, as such, again a player of Rankine’s AFL standard would reasonable expect to be tackled or bumped in that situation 9i.e. a legal defensive action).
- The force of Daniel’s bump was high, but was it excessive? What determines excessive? In my opinion, Rankine had the ball in both of his hands with a fairly sturdy grip against his body. in the circumstances the force of the impact was high yes, as it needed to be to dislodge the ball, but excessive, certainly not..
- Was Rankine in a vulnerable position. His arms were in front of him, no arms pinned, he didn’t’ have his head over the ball, he was standing – where is the vulnerability. If he was vulnerable than any player on that pitch within 5 metres of the ball is vulnerable.
Not that I agree there was a reportable offence, but nonetheless, let’s now look at the grading.
Conduct
Assessed as careless. This isn’t disputed
Impact
Assessed as severe.
Again, as mentioned earlier, should be argued it was high impact not severe. Severe would have left him motionless until he got to the hospital. Severe is the highest of high grades. Yes, Rankine had a fencing response, but he also lifts his right knee, consciously very soon after the bump, and got up with assistance, and could have walked off with assistance but for the little ambulance cart being there.
His Glasgow coma scale would not have been that high at all given he was up fairly soon after the incident.
Does he have post traumatic amnesia – I’m sure he does but to what extent I don’t know, would need to see the medical report, doubt it would have been in excess of a few hours after the incident.
I highly doubt that you would find any brain pathology on MRI or alternative imaging.
But these are questions we should be asking!
Yes it’s a concussion, but he was up soon after. High impact yes, severe no.
The inclusion of the shoulder AC joint injury is nonsensical and irrelevant.
Contact
It’s not high contact but in the AFL Tribunal rules it states that if your conduct leads to someone hitting their head on the floor then its high contact. This is a rubbish rule, but it’s there.
Unsure how to argue out of that one. But nevertheless it’s there.
So if they were to actually meet the criteria of a reportable offence, then the grading should be, in the order of conduct, impact, contact, Careless, high, high = 2 matches. If it could be argued that there is absolutely no direct contact with the head or neck (which on video evidence there isn’t) then the grading is careless, high, body = 1 match.
Port were also not able to establish the exceptional and compelling circumstances of a prior good record and great character in order to get a good record reduction. Cameron had 5 previous reportable offences, Dan one for a melee which was a fine. Was this properly argued and asked for, I think not. The request for leniency based on a potential missed Grand final was never going to work. The asking for 3 matches instead of 0 was crazy.
Hammer me all you want, this is just something I came up with quickly after reading the AFL Tribunal Rules. I am a lawyer, I’ve used Ben as counsel in my matters in the past, and he is exceptionally thorough and diligent. This just screams to me that he would have given sounds advice to Port to go hard, but the now vanilla administration we have would have instructed him against it and try to play the poor me card, instead of the “this isn’t Dan’s fault this is the AFLs fault” line that should have been pushed.
The appeal, I don’t know I think it is somewhat a pointless exercise because we didn’t’ raise these points at the initial tribunal hearing.
I did wonder about the quality of our legal representation, but you've put this in focus here - is it the Club instructing our lawyers to take the soft path rather than their preferred legal approach?The first question is, What is the charge? (eating a succulent Chinese meal! RIP).
But in all seriousness, although they call this list non-exhaustive, one must look at it to decipher whether the conduct is firstly a reportable offence.
Forceful front on contact:
Requires:
The opponent to have his head over the ball.
Criteria not met.
Rough conduct (High Bumps):
Requires:
In the bumping of an opponent (whether reasonable or unreasonably) the Player causes contact that is at least low impact to be made with any part of his body to an opponent’s head or neck (top of shoulders also included).
Arguments
Criteria not met.
- Supporting witnesses, 2 field umpires in direct vicinity of incident and now Ray Chamberlain who was 60/70 metres away who says he had a great line of sight, all said it was contact to front of chest and front of shoulder, no free-kick paid.
- On video analysis, on the balance of probabilities, the Tribunal simply cannot be reasonably satisfied that high contact was made.
Rough Conduct (bumps to the body):
Requires:
Arguments
- The conduct of the offender was unreasonable in the circumstances.
- They will take into account:
- The degree of force applied by the person bumping was excessive for the situation;
- The player being bumped was in a vulnerable position;
- The player could have reasonable expect the contact having regard to his involvement in the play or ability to influence the contest.
Before moving to the grading, I am simply not satisfied that any criteria relating to one of the relevant reportable offences has been met. The bump is legal still, and if executed correctly and without meeting the criteria set above, one simply cannot be reported for it. Having said this, the Tribunal rules indicate this is not an exhaustive list, and they are likely, if this argument was actually put forward, to make up some other charge.
- It was not a marking contest, wherever the ball landed it was a “play-on” situation, thus Rankine as an AFL standard player could have reasonably expected that he was going to be met by contact. It was not a situation where the players were unsure of whether the ball had been touched or not, it was a clear double fist from Mark Kean, and it was always going to be play on.
- The bump, is not “illegal” in the eyes of the AFL, as such, again a player of Rankine’s AFL standard would reasonable expect to be tackled or bumped in that situation 9i.e. a legal defensive action).
- The force of Daniel’s bump was high, but was it excessive? What determines excessive? In my opinion, Rankine had the ball in both of his hands with a fairly sturdy grip against his body. in the circumstances the force of the impact was high yes, as it needed to be to dislodge the ball, but excessive, certainly not..
- Was Rankine in a vulnerable position. His arms were in front of him, no arms pinned, he didn’t’ have his head over the ball, he was standing – where is the vulnerability. If he was vulnerable than any player on that pitch within 5 metres of the ball is vulnerable.
Not that I agree there was a reportable offence, but nonetheless, let’s now look at the grading.
Conduct
Assessed as careless. This isn’t disputed
Impact
Assessed as severe.
Again, as mentioned earlier, should be argued it was high impact not severe. Severe would have left him motionless until he got to the hospital. Severe is the highest of high grades. Yes, Rankine had a fencing response, but he also lifts his right knee, consciously very soon after the bump, and got up with assistance, and could have walked off with assistance but for the little ambulance cart being there.
His Glasgow coma scale would not have been that high at all given he was up fairly soon after the incident.
Does he have post traumatic amnesia – I’m sure he does but to what extent I don’t know, would need to see the medical report, doubt it would have been in excess of a few hours after the incident.
I highly doubt that you would find any brain pathology on MRI or alternative imaging.
But these are questions we should be asking!
Yes it’s a concussion, but he was up soon after. High impact yes, severe no.
The inclusion of the shoulder AC joint injury is nonsensical and irrelevant.
Contact
It’s not high contact but in the AFL Tribunal rules it states that if your conduct leads to someone hitting their head on the floor then its high contact. This is a rubbish rule, but it’s there.
Unsure how to argue out of that one. But nevertheless it’s there.
So if they were to actually meet the criteria of a reportable offence, then the grading should be, in the order of conduct, impact, contact, Careless, high, high = 2 matches. If it could be argued that there is absolutely no direct contact with the head or neck (which on video evidence there isn’t) then the grading is careless, high, body = 1 match.
Port were also not able to establish the exceptional and compelling circumstances of a prior good record and great character in order to get a good record reduction. Cameron had 5 previous reportable offences, Dan one for a melee which was a fine. Was this properly argued and asked for, I think not. The request for leniency based on a potential missed Grand final was never going to work. The asking for 3 matches instead of 0 was crazy.
Hammer me all you want, this is just something I came up with quickly after reading the AFL Tribunal Rules. I am a lawyer, I’ve used Ben as counsel in my matters in the past, and he is exceptionally thorough and diligent. This just screams to me that he would have given sounds advice to Port to go hard, but the now vanilla administration we have would have instructed him against it and try to play the poor me card, instead of the “this isn’t Dan’s fault this is the AFLs fault” line that should have been pushed.
The appeal, I don’t know I think it is somewhat a pointless exercise because we didn’t’ raise these points at the initial tribunal hearing.
I often advise my client's to go one way, but they often instruct me to go in a different direction for one reason or another. For example, i may be very bullish about running a matter to a trial, but my clients have no interest in sticking around for 12 - 18 months for resolution of heir matter and will opt to settle instead. Ultimately, we are their mouthpiece, and can only ac on their instructions.I did wonder about the quality of our legal representation, but you've put this in focus here - is it the Club instructing our lawyers to take the soft path rather than their preferred legal approach?
I often advise my client's to go one way, but they often instruct me to go in a different direction for one reason or another. For example, i may be very bullish about running a matter to a trial, but my clients have no interest in sticking around for 12 - 18 months for resolution of heir matter and will opt to settle instead. Ultimately, we are their mouthpiece, and can only ac on their instructions.
Yea mate, don't cancel.That is my life. Nothing runs, despite advice that clients have decent prospects. I have a trial in a couple of weeks that I have advised on but I'm not cancelling anything for the two weeks it is supposed to run because all the parties are keen to settle beforehand. It is just a question of who will blink first.
Despite lots of attempts from Whateley, Razor is pretty steadfast that there was no free against Houston on the night and that was the right call.
From about 2:45 in.
To add to the evidence of Gerards stupidity, he includes Sam Powell Pepper as an example this year of when the send of rule was clearly appropriate. Its clear to me there are journo types that simply have no feel for the game and should stick to calling horses.
The first question is, What is the charge? (eating a succulent Chinese meal! RIP).
But in all seriousness, although they call this list non-exhaustive, one must look at it to decipher whether the conduct is firstly a reportable offence.
Forceful front on contact:
Requires:
The opponent to have his head over the ball.
Criteria not met.
Rough conduct (High Bumps):
Requires:
In the bumping of an opponent (whether reasonable or unreasonably) the Player causes contact that is at least low impact to be made with any part of his body to an opponent’s head or neck (top of shoulders also included).
Arguments
Criteria not met.
- Supporting witnesses, 2 field umpires in direct vicinity of incident and now Ray Chamberlain who was 60/70 metres away who says he had a great line of sight, all said it was contact to front of chest and front of shoulder, no free-kick paid.
- On video analysis, on the balance of probabilities, the Tribunal simply cannot be reasonably satisfied that high contact was made.
Rough Conduct (bumps to the body):
Requires:
Arguments
- The conduct of the offender was unreasonable in the circumstances.
- They will take into account:
- The degree of force applied by the person bumping was excessive for the situation;
- The player being bumped was in a vulnerable position;
- The player could have reasonable expect the contact having regard to his involvement in the play or ability to influence the contest.
Before moving to the grading, I am simply not satisfied that any criteria relating to one of the relevant reportable offences has been met. The bump is legal still, and if executed correctly and without meeting the criteria set above, one simply cannot be reported for it. Having said this, the Tribunal rules indicate this is not an exhaustive list, and they are likely, if this argument was actually put forward, to make up some other charge.
- It was not a marking contest, wherever the ball landed it was a “play-on” situation, thus Rankine as an AFL standard player could have reasonably expected that he was going to be met by contact. It was not a situation where the players were unsure of whether the ball had been touched or not, it was a clear double fist from Mark Kean, and it was always going to be play on.
- The bump, is not “illegal” in the eyes of the AFL, as such, again a player of Rankine’s AFL standard would reasonable expect to be tackled or bumped in that situation 9i.e. a legal defensive action).
- The force of Daniel’s bump was high, but was it excessive? What determines excessive? In my opinion, Rankine had the ball in both of his hands with a fairly sturdy grip against his body. in the circumstances the force of the impact was high yes, as it needed to be to dislodge the ball, but excessive, certainly not..
- Was Rankine in a vulnerable position. His arms were in front of him, no arms pinned, he didn’t’ have his head over the ball, he was standing – where is the vulnerability. If he was vulnerable than any player on that pitch within 5 metres of the ball is vulnerable.
Not that I agree there was a reportable offence, but nonetheless, let’s now look at the grading.
Conduct
Assessed as careless. This isn’t disputed
Impact
Assessed as severe.
Again, as mentioned earlier, should be argued it was high impact not severe. Severe would have left him motionless until he got to the hospital. Severe is the highest of high grades. Yes, Rankine had a fencing response, but he also lifts his right knee, consciously very soon after the bump, and got up with assistance, and could have walked off with assistance but for the little ambulance cart being there.
His Glasgow coma scale would not have been that high at all given he was up fairly soon after the incident.
Does he have post traumatic amnesia – I’m sure he does but to what extent I don’t know, would need to see the medical report, doubt it would have been in excess of a few hours after the incident.
I highly doubt that you would find any brain pathology on MRI or alternative imaging.
But these are questions we should be asking!
Yes it’s a concussion, but he was up soon after. High impact yes, severe no.
The inclusion of the shoulder AC joint injury is nonsensical and irrelevant.
Contact
It’s not high contact but in the AFL Tribunal rules it states that if your conduct leads to someone hitting their head on the floor then its high contact. This is a rubbish rule, but it’s there.
Unsure how to argue out of that one. But nevertheless it’s there.
So if they were to actually meet the criteria of a reportable offence, then the grading should be, in the order of conduct, impact, contact, Careless, high, high = 2 matches. If it could be argued that there is absolutely no direct contact with the head or neck (which on video evidence there isn’t) then the grading is careless, high, body = 1 match.
Port were also not able to establish the exceptional and compelling circumstances of a prior good record and great character in order to get a good record reduction. Cameron had 5 previous reportable offences, Dan one for a melee which was a fine. Was this properly argued and asked for, I think not. The request for leniency based on a potential missed Grand final was never going to work. The asking for 3 matches instead of 0 was crazy.
Hammer me all you want, this is just something I came up with quickly after reading the AFL Tribunal Rules. I am a lawyer, I’ve used Ben as counsel in my matters in the past, and he is exceptionally thorough and diligent. This just screams to me that he would have given sounds advice to Port to go hard, but the now vanilla administration we have would have instructed him against it and try to play the poor me card, instead of the “this isn’t Dan’s fault this is the AFLs fault” line that should have been pushed.
The appeal, I don’t know I think it is somewhat a pointless exercise because we didn’t’ raise these points at the initial tribunal hearing.
This is great analysis however for the rough conduct charge the AFL would certainly argue that the degree of force Houston applied was excessive for the situation. As he had the option to tackle (which he has already foolishly admitted to) the fact that his bump resulted in a player being concussed means that his degree of force is clearly excessive.The first question is, What is the charge? (eating a succulent Chinese meal! RIP).
But in all seriousness, although they call this list non-exhaustive, one must look at it to decipher whether the conduct is firstly a reportable offence.
Forceful front on contact:
Requires:
The opponent to have his head over the ball.
Criteria not met.
Rough conduct (High Bumps):
Requires:
In the bumping of an opponent (whether reasonable or unreasonably) the Player causes contact that is at least low impact to be made with any part of his body to an opponent’s head or neck (top of shoulders also included).
Arguments
Criteria not met.
- Supporting witnesses, 2 field umpires in direct vicinity of incident and now Ray Chamberlain who was 60/70 metres away who says he had a great line of sight, all said it was contact to front of chest and front of shoulder, no free-kick paid.
- On video analysis, on the balance of probabilities, the Tribunal simply cannot be reasonably satisfied that high contact was made.
Rough Conduct (bumps to the body):
Requires:
Arguments
- The conduct of the offender was unreasonable in the circumstances.
- They will take into account:
- The degree of force applied by the person bumping was excessive for the situation;
- The player being bumped was in a vulnerable position;
- The player could have reasonable expect the contact having regard to his involvement in the play or ability to influence the contest.
Before moving to the grading, I am simply not satisfied that any criteria relating to one of the relevant reportable offences has been met. The bump is legal still, and if executed correctly and without meeting the criteria set above, one simply cannot be reported for it. Having said this, the Tribunal rules indicate this is not an exhaustive list, and they are likely, if this argument was actually put forward, to make up some other charge.
- It was not a marking contest, wherever the ball landed it was a “play-on” situation, thus Rankine as an AFL standard player could have reasonably expected that he was going to be met by contact. It was not a situation where the players were unsure of whether the ball had been touched or not, it was a clear double fist from Mark Kean, and it was always going to be play on.
- The bump, is not “illegal” in the eyes of the AFL, as such, again a player of Rankine’s AFL standard would reasonable expect to be tackled or bumped in that situation 9i.e. a legal defensive action).
- The force of Daniel’s bump was high, but was it excessive? What determines excessive? In my opinion, Rankine had the ball in both of his hands with a fairly sturdy grip against his body. in the circumstances the force of the impact was high yes, as it needed to be to dislodge the ball, but excessive, certainly not..
- Was Rankine in a vulnerable position. His arms were in front of him, no arms pinned, he didn’t’ have his head over the ball, he was standing – where is the vulnerability. If he was vulnerable than any player on that pitch within 5 metres of the ball is vulnerable.
Not that I agree there was a reportable offence, but nonetheless, let’s now look at the grading.
Conduct
Assessed as careless. This isn’t disputed
Impact
Assessed as severe.
Again, as mentioned earlier, should be argued it was high impact not severe. Severe would have left him motionless until he got to the hospital. Severe is the highest of high grades. Yes, Rankine had a fencing response, but he also lifts his right knee, consciously very soon after the bump, and got up with assistance, and could have walked off with assistance but for the little ambulance cart being there.
His Glasgow coma scale would not have been that high at all given he was up fairly soon after the incident.
Does he have post traumatic amnesia – I’m sure he does but to what extent I don’t know, would need to see the medical report, doubt it would have been in excess of a few hours after the incident.
I highly doubt that you would find any brain pathology on MRI or alternative imaging.
But these are questions we should be asking!
Yes it’s a concussion, but he was up soon after. High impact yes, severe no.
The inclusion of the shoulder AC joint injury is nonsensical and irrelevant.
Contact
It’s not high contact but in the AFL Tribunal rules it states that if your conduct leads to someone hitting their head on the floor then its high contact. This is a rubbish rule, but it’s there.
Unsure how to argue out of that one. But nevertheless it’s there.
So if they were to actually meet the criteria of a reportable offence, then the grading should be, in the order of conduct, impact, contact, Careless, high, high = 2 matches. If it could be argued that there is absolutely no direct contact with the head or neck (which on video evidence there isn’t) then the grading is careless, high, body = 1 match.
Port were also not able to establish the exceptional and compelling circumstances of a prior good record and great character in order to get a good record reduction. Cameron had 5 previous reportable offences, Dan one for a melee which was a fine. Was this properly argued and asked for, I think not. The request for leniency based on a potential missed Grand final was never going to work. The asking for 3 matches instead of 0 was crazy.
Hammer me all you want, this is just something I came up with quickly after reading the AFL Tribunal Rules. I am a lawyer, I’ve used Ben as counsel in my matters in the past, and he is exceptionally thorough and diligent. This just screams to me that he would have given sounds advice to Port to go hard, but the now vanilla administration we have would have instructed him against it and try to play the poor me card, instead of the “this isn’t Dan’s fault this is the AFLs fault” line that should have been pushed.
The appeal, I don’t know I think it is somewhat a pointless exercise because we didn’t’ raise these points at the initial tribunal hearing.
That's bitch talk ..This is great analysis however for the rough conduct charge the AFL would certainly argue that the degree of force Houston applied was excessive for the situation. As he had the option to tackle (which he has already foolishly admitted to) the fact that his bump resulted in a player being concussed means that his degree of force is clearly excessive.
Forceful front on contact:
Requires:
The opponent to have his head over the ball.
Criteria not met.
I understand that, and youa re correct the inclusion of omission of words is paramount to legislative interpretation. But, then the argument would be the only situaiton in which the head isn't over the ball is when a player raises the ball above his head. I don't think that is what they meant.Some excellent research there but not sure if your literal reading of the rules is quite as black and white as it is in application.
For example,
In 2022 (iirc) correctly, the AFL changed the rule relating to front on contact which used to read 'The opponent to have his head down over the ball'
The rule now reads:
'The opponent to have his head over the ball'
Why did they remove the word 'down' from that rule?
I don't know. But my (out of date and rarely used) legal training suggests to me that removing words matter when it comes to how legislation (or in this case rules of the game in a court-like Tribunal setting) are subsequently applied. And my guess is that they did that to remove the specificity about the position of the head in relation to the ball to cover exactly the sort of scenario that is presented with the Houston bump. That 'over the ball' becomes a more generic 'catch all' term that can be used to cover any circumstances where a player has forward momentum and the ball is in his immediate path even if not in his possession.
Could be wrong of course. Just saying. And it's why Clubs and the AFL use KCs to argue Tribunal penalties.