Opinion What unpopular AFL opinions do you have? - Part 2

[Proffessor]

I think this opinion of yours aligns quite neatly with your misspelled user name.

There's plenty of players who have been ineligible for the Brownlow due to suspension in the year they were a contender.
His suspension was for actions taken in the year he 'won' the Brownlow, hence becoming ineligible after the fact.

I'm not sure how this is even a discussion.

No retrospective match video reviews being undertaken years after the fact though.

If such action gets taken, then quite a few medals might have to be returned\redistributed.

 

[Soggy2112]

Because it is an umpire's award for playing conduct during that season. It's not a tainted race result or championship record.

It’s an award for the best and fairest. How can a player who took a banned substance be considered fairest?

It also appears that the drug program had negligible impact on his performance during that season.

That’s not really relevant. We don’t decide about stripping athletes of awards based on the perceived influence of the drug on performance. They either took a banned substance or didn’t.

 

[Proffessor]

It’s an award for the best and fairest. How can a player who took a banned substance be considered fairest?



That’s not really relevant. We don’t decide about stripping athletes of awards based on the perceived influence of the drug on performance. They either took a banned substance or didn’t.

Ok so let’s recap.

Watson never tested positive to a banned substance and was assured by his club medical staff that whatever supplements they were giving him at the time were definitely legal, so never knowingly took any PEDs.

He only got suspended years later after it was determined that what they told him was wrong, and that after much legal argument that it wasn’t within the guidelines after all.

Hence the club and especially all individual players affected were all severely punished.

This could be considered to be a bit harsh on the players, for the heinous crime of naively trusting their club medical staff.

But obviously not harsh enough for some because despite a lack of evidence that the supplements provided any performance benefit whatsoever the league further decides that Watson has to hand back his umpire judged playing conduct award even though there was no regulatory requirement for such action to occur.

So they don’t just suspend Watson and truncate his career, but further take away his personal crowning achievement too.

This thread is supposedly for unpopular opinions, and it appears that thinking this extra individual punishment for Watson was unnecessarily harsh may indeed be unpopular, but nonetheless I think it is still justifiable.

 

[Caligo]

Ok so let’s recap.

Watson never tested positive to a banned substance and was assured by his club medical staff that whatever supplements they were giving him at the time were definitely legal, so never knowingly took any PEDs.

He only got suspended years later after it was determined that what they told him was wrong, and that after much legal argument that it wasn’t within the guidelines after all.

Hence the club and especially all individual players affected were all severely punished.

This could be considered to be a bit harsh on the players, for the heinous crime of naively trusting their club medical staff.

But obviously not harsh enough for some because despite a lack of evidence that the supplements provided any performance benefit whatsoever the league further decides that Watson has to hand back his umpire judged playing conduct award even though there was no regulatory requirement for such action to occur.

So they don’t just suspend Watson and truncate his career, but further take away his personal crowning achievement too.

This thread is supposedly for unpopular opinions, and it appears that thinking this extra individual punishment for Watson was unnecessarily harsh may indeed be unpopular, but nonetheless I think it is still justifiable.

It is certainly an unpopular take to suggest drug cheats deserve best and fairest awards. You are right about that at least.

My take, popular or unpopular as it may be, is that Essendon and the 34 players got off easy.

 

[Soggy2112]

Ok so let’s recap.

Watson never tested positive to a banned substance and was assured by his club medical staff that whatever supplements they were giving him at the time were definitely legal, so never knowingly took any PEDs.

He only got suspended years later after it was determined that what they told him was wrong, and that after much legal argument that it wasn’t within the guidelines after all.

Hence the club and especially all individual players affected were all severely punished.

This could be considered to be a bit harsh on the players, for the heinous crime of naively trusting their club medical staff.

But obviously not harsh enough for some because despite a lack of evidence that the supplements provided any performance benefit whatsoever the league further decides that Watson has to hand back his umpire judged playing conduct award even though there was no regulatory requirement for such action to occur.

So they don’t just suspend Watson and truncate his career, but further take away his personal crowning achievement too.

This thread is supposedly for unpopular opinions, and it appears that thinking this extra individual punishment for Watson was unnecessarily harsh may indeed be unpopular, but nonetheless I think it is still justifiable.

It isn’t an extra punishment though.

In any sport if players are found guilty of taking a banned substance they are suspended, and awards won in that period are stripped from them. It is standard procedure.

The point remains, if the suspension is fair, then there’s no way you can justifiably claim that it’s fair for him to keep his Brownlow.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Ok so let’s recap.

Watson never tested positive to a banned substance and was assured by his club medical staff that whatever supplements they were giving him at the time were definitely legal, so never knowingly took any PEDs.

He only got suspended years later after it was determined that what they told him was wrong, and that after much legal argument that it wasn’t within the guidelines after all.

Hence the club and especially all individual players affected were all severely punished.

This could be considered to be a bit harsh on the players, for the heinous crime of naively trusting their club medical staff.

But obviously not harsh enough for some because despite a lack of evidence that the supplements provided any performance benefit whatsoever the league further decides that Watson has to hand back his umpire judged playing conduct award even though there was no regulatory requirement for such action to occur.

So they don’t just suspend Watson and truncate his career, but further take away his personal crowning achievement too.

This thread is supposedly for unpopular opinions, and it appears that thinking this extra individual punishment for Watson was unnecessarily harsh may indeed be unpopular, but nonetheless I think it is still justifiable.

Jobe never got close to the amount of brownlow votes he got in 2012 previously or ever again.

He looked the other way while declaring that he’d noticed how big his teammates had gotten and spoke of how he’d never received as many injections before. Injections that he never declared to ASADA.

 

[Corkintheocean]

Along similar lines...

In a effort to selfishly elongate his career, Dustin Fletcher

Dustin Fletcher

Age

49

Ht

198cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.0

4star

K

12.3

5star

HB

3.7

3star

M

4.7

4star

T

1.2

3star

MG

301.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

14.2

4star

K

11.4

4star

HB

2.8

3star

M

4.8

5star

T

1.4

4star

fell woefully short in his obligation to his young teammates on Essendon's list. By not standing up and questioning the regime running an illegal doping program - something that was not going on in the first 15 years at his club - he forever tarnished his standing in the game.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Along similar lines...

In an effort to selfishly elongate his career, Dustin Fletcher fell woefully short in his obligation to his young teammates on Essendon's list. By not standing up and questioning the regime running an illegal doping program - something that was not going on in the first 15 years at his club - he forever tarnished his standing in the game.

The EFC thought they’d found a loophole in the code.

To protect themselves from what they knew was quite possibly against the rules, quite possibly due to the amount of injection and the direction to not report any to ASADA, the players asked the club for waivers which they hoped would remove their responsibility and cover their arse.

The biggest joke in all of it was that a club and its board ‘had no idea’ what anyone in the football dept was planning or doing with their most important commodities, the players, for 8 months… what did they talk about in the board meetings? The weather?

Essendon in 'doctor shopping' to beat ban

Essendon's 2012 supplements program involved a ploy to circumvent anti-doping rules.

amp.theage.com.au

 

[Aussie in exile]

The EFC thought they’d found a loophole in the code.

To protect themselves from what they knew was quite possibly against the rules, quite possibly due to the amount of injection and the direction to not report any to ASADA, the players asked the club for waivers which they hoped would remove their responsibility and cover their arse.

The biggest joke in all of it was that a club and its board ‘had no idea’ what anyone in the football dept was planning or doing with their most important commodities, the players, for 8 months… what did they talk about in the board meetings? The weather?

Essendon in 'doctor shopping' to beat ban

Essendon's 2012 supplements program involved a ploy to circumvent anti-doping rules.

amp.theage.com.au

The question that the EFC refuse to answer is "Why if they didn't have anything to hide did they destroy all evidence of what was injected into the players?"

 

[bomberclifford]

The question that the EFC refuse to answer is "Why if they didn't have anything to hide did they destroy all evidence of what was injected into the players?"

Come on, didn't you see the photo of the printout of an email with a picture of a bottle with a handwritten label on it?

 

[Rusty Brookes]

Ok so let’s recap.

Watson never tested positive to a banned substance and was assured by his club medical staff that whatever supplements they were giving him at the time were definitely legal, so never knowingly took any PEDs.

So you can't see why that's a massive issue? Every dodgy athlete in the world could be injected with whatever as long the medicos said it was alright. It has to be the athlete that is responsible for what goes into their body. I'm sure East German athletes were getting pumped with whatever back in the Cold War days and they were probably ignorant of what was actually getting putting into them. It's still cheating.

Now Jobe has every right to sue Essendon and the medical staff for putting him in the situation, if they assured him the supplements were not illegal. But that doesn't absolve him from his responsibility to ensure anything HE takes is allowed. The punishment has to be with the athlete otherwise the deterrent to break the rules is not strong enough.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Scrap the prior opportunity rule.

People either love it or hate it, but I'm in favour of removing the stand rule.

 

[Proffessor]

So you can't see why that's a massive issue? Every dodgy athlete in the world could be injected with whatever as long the medicos said it was alright. It has to be the athlete that is responsible for what goes into their body. I'm sure East German athletes were getting pumped with whatever back in the Cold War days and they were probably ignorant of what was actually getting putting into them. It's still cheating.

Now Jobe has every right to sue Essendon and the medical staff for putting him in the situation, if they assured him the supplements were not illegal. But that doesn't absolve him from his responsibility to ensure anything HE takes is allowed. The punishment has to be with the athlete otherwise the deterrent to break the rules is not strong enough.

You and a few others seem to have missed half the debate and at least partially misunderstood my position.

I agree that Essendon did the wrong thing and needed to be punished.

Even though the players were given dodgy advice by medical staff, I also recognise that they couldn’t be completely absolved of personal responsibility lest that open the door for future exploitation of such a ruling.

My position is simply that the suspension was more than enough punishment for the players including Jobe, and that there was no need to go further and strip the poor bloke of his Brownlow. He’d been punished enough.

How much punishment is too much for the crime of allowing yourself to be misled by your club’s medical staff?

The AFL didn’t have to take it away, there was no rule requiring them to do so. It is simply an umpire voted playing conduct award and they could have, and should have, just let it stand.

 

[jatz14]

Scrap the prior opportunity rule.

People either love it or hate it, but I'm in favour of removing the stand rule.

How are you going to get players to pick the ball up, if the first player to do it is going to be immediately tackled?

Because that's the problem the rule was designed to fix. Players stabbing in a circle around the ball looking at each other. You get, no, after you, you first.

On moto g(6) plus using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Caligo]

You and a few others seem to have missed half the debate and at least partially misunderstood my position.

I agree that Essendon did the wrong thing and needed to be punished.

Even though the players were given dodgy advice by medical staff, I also recognise that they couldn’t be completely absolved of personal responsibility lest that open the door for future exploitation of such a ruling.

My position is simply that the suspension was more than enough punishment for the players including Jobe, and that there was no need to go further and strip the poor bloke of his Brownlow. He’d been punished enough.

How much punishment is too much for the crime of allowing yourself to be misled by your club’s medical staff?

The AFL didn’t have to take it away, there was no rule requiring them to do so. It is simply an umpire voted playing conduct award and they could have, and should have, just let it stand.

All professional sport in Australia has a standard set of rules that any awards or achievements earned whilst doping are null and void. That is true regardless of whether the doping is found a day later or a decade later.

 

[Proffessor]

All professional sport in Australia has a standard set of rules that any awards or achievements earned whilst doping are null and void. That is true regardless of whether the doping is found a day later or a decade later.

And yet he got to keep his Crichton Medal.

 

[bitadash]

Dropping the ball and holding the ball appear to have been blended into one rule…
It may not be an unpopular opinion given some of the sentiments here.

Any legitimate/purposeful contact where a player does not dispose effectively should be ‘dropping the ball’.
‘Holding the ball’ should be the only situation assessed via ‘prior opportunity’ as the tackle renders the player incapable of kicking/handballing.

 

[Quivorir]

Can we get rid of the "ball knocked out by the tackle" bullshit too please

 

[Caligo]

And yet he got to keep his Crichton Medal.

Yep. Essendon also tried to get the guy who was responsible for the entire drug program back as coach again. You can't use them as a standard. They will always be drug cheats.

 

[jatz14]

Can we get rid of the "ball knocked out by the tackle" bullshit too please

It's ok hating a rule, but like the no prior rule, it exists for a reason, so if you genuinely want the rule gone, you need to address why it was introduced.

In a contested situation, where a tackle immediately after you get the ball is likely, then a likely outcome is, the tackle traps the ball, or it knocks it out.

Especially if these rules are gone, everyone will be either trying to do these things in the tackle.

If these are frees, then it's best to not pick up the ball. It's best to try to tackle the player that gets the ball.

And this is true of everyone around the ball.

But the objective of Australian rules is supposed to be the ball, the objective is never supposed to be tackling. Tackling is what you do if you lose in your objective to get the ball. The tackler is the first loser.

Prior opportunity, and the ball knocked free rules are intended to weight the game in favour of the player that gets the ball, and to make sure that tackling doesn't become the main objective.

On moto g(6) plus using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Proffessor]

Yep. Essendon also tried to get the guy who was responsible for the entire drug program back as coach again. You can't use them as a standard. They will always be drug cheats.

Maybe so, but it also proved awards don't have to revoked.

 

[Caligo]

Maybe so, but it also proved awards don't have to revoked.

Yep. And I am sure you could find a few other outliers too. But the general rule in this country is pro athletes who dope lose their accolades for the time they are known to have been doping.

It isn’t like it was invented just for Doper Jobe.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Scrap the prior opportunity rule.

People either love it or hate it, but I'm in favour of removing the stand rule.

Removing prior opportunity would fix a huge amount of modern football’s problems.

Players treat it like rugby, force stoppages because coaches love stoppages - they can set up.

 

[Proffessor]

Removing prior opportunity would fix a huge amount of modern football’s problems.

Players treat it like rugby, force stoppages because coaches love stoppages - they can set up.

Prior opportunity has to stay, it would be disastrous to remove it.

The stoppage problem has been created by allowing secondary tacklers to recklessly pile on and trap the ball in intentionally either to gain a free kick or just force a ball up. If umpires paid 'in the back' and 'over the shoulder' free kicks more often in such situations and/or just stopped rewarding the team intentionally trapping the ball in with free kicks, then it could reduce the stoppages significantly.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Prior opportunity has to stay, it would be disastrous to remove it.

The stoppage problem has been created by allowing secondary tacklers to recklessly pile on and trap the ball in intentionally either to gain a free kick or just force a ball up. If umpires paid 'in the back' and 'over the shoulder' free kicks more often in such situations and/or just stopped rewarding the team intentionally trapping the ball in with free kicks, then it could reduce the stoppages significantly.

Wouldn’t be disastrous at all. The game existed for decades without it and was just fine… incl through periods that people cite as the most entertaining ever.

It all comes down to one thing: you have to keep the ball in motion. Players would take possession and get rid of it rapidly.

You can still get tackled with the ball, but when you are, you have to get rid of it.

Keep the game moving. Every other bandaid measure, like capping interchanges, becomes redundant. Players naturally tire out because they’re not breaking at a stoppage every 10 seconds.

All the ills they’ve tried to “fix” in the modern game can be traced back to the misguided introduction of prior opportunity in the late 90s.