15 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Fasting before playing a Senior AFL Match is just so bizarre. 

Does that include nil fluid intake?

only between dawn and sunset. do what you like outside that

By all reports, Houli is a great guy, but great guys do make mistakes and must face the consequences.

Personally, it's 3 weeks for this incident.  While the hit was 'intentional', there's no way he was aiming for his head.  

Reckless, off the ball, high contact, high impact.

 

Just now, daisycutter said:

only between dawn and sunset. do what you like outside that

I knew those boundries. Adem Yze obviously wasn't as strict in his beliefs. 

Religions never cease to amaze and amuse me

The one saving grace from this whole drama is it keeps Clarry out of the news and off the backpage.

3 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

I knew those boundries. Adem Yze obviously wasn't as strict in his beliefs. 

Religions never cease to amaze and amuse me

and the fast is not for all of the ramadan month

you can also break a fast day. you then have to do an extra day......so it is flexible

but i agree that hydration could be a big problem if fasting on a match day played in the afternoon

Forgive my ignorance, but who exactly does the AFL appeal to? Itself? Who makes the final decision?

And what is the normal time frame here? 

1 minute ago, daisycutter said:

and the fast is not for all of the ramadan month

you can also break a fast day. you then have to do an extra day......so it is flexible

but i agree that hydration could be a big problem if fasting on a match day played in the afternoon

Absolutely. Sunrise till 3.20 Start is 8-9 hours before Maximum exertion begins!

it is pure madness!

1 hour ago, picket fence said:

What a farcical situation, The AFL have stuffed this right up!

What's new?

54 minutes ago, poita said:

Correct decision to appeal, and well done to the AFL for doing so. The penalty should be at least doubled. 

The tribunal members who made the decision should be dismissed immediately.

I agree with you poita, but the questions remain (in my mind at least) did the AFL appeal because:

• the 2 week penalty was manifestly inadequate (?): or
• to avert the massive media backlash that was inevitable (?).  

We will never know the answer, of course, but I'm cynical enough to believe that self preservation would have had some part to play ........... but maybe I'm just shitty because I think the Schofield decision was equally culpable, and by its nature, it reflects poorly the integrity of Clarrie. 

26 minutes ago, Deeoldfart said:

I agree with you poita, but the questions remain (in my mind at least) did the AFL appeal because:

• the 2 week penalty was manifestly inadequate (?): or
• to avert the massive media backlash that was inevitable (?).  

We will never know the answer, of course, but I'm cynical enough to believe that self preservation would have had some part to play ........... but maybe I'm just shitty because I think the Schofield decision was equally culpable, and by its nature, it reflects poorly the integrity of Clarrie. 

How about this for a conspiracy theory.

The AFL got Houli the small penalty in full knowledge they would appeal, while at the same time making people say that you cant give Schofield the same penalty as Houli.

This does a few things.

1 - Eventually gets Houli the penalty he deserves

2 - Gets Schofield off, which was determined the right call by the old players media boys club

3 - Puts Houli on teh front page instead of Clarrie and Clarrie gets forgotten about (along with the bloke who elbowed him int he head behind play).

Win win win!

13 minutes ago, Chris said:

How about this for a conspiracy theory.

The AFL got Houli the small penalty in full knowledge they would appeal, while at the same time making people say that you cant give Schofield the same penalty as Houli.

This does a few things.

1 - Eventually gets Houli the penalty he deserves

2 - Gets Schofield off, which was determined the right call by the old players media boys club

3 - Puts Houli on teh front page instead of Clarrie and Clarrie gets forgotten about (along with the bloke who elbowed him int he head behind play).

Win win win!

Are they really that clever at AFL HQ?  

But it was very clear as soon as Basher was reduced to 2 weeks that Schofield would get zero.

The sooner the MRP & Tribunal are composed of people who aren't former players the better.  Ex-players have too much invested in teams and people they know and love or hate on top of their own playing history and egos about how tough they were etc.   It is a sign of how amateur the AFL is that it doesn't see this. 

In fact if there was a model where ex-players had almost nothing to to with the AFL admin, yet the game wasn't totally prostituted to corporate dollars, I'd say remove ex-players entirely.   hmm, maybe too late for that already.

Deserves 6 weeks for trying to worm out of it behind 'character references'.

Take your punishment like a man. 

who cares how good a bloke he is ,he did the crime do the time ,I knew big carl in his heyday great bloke would help anybody but he was tough on the field of play,and did his time.By the way what is a waleed aly

The AFL had to overturn the Schofield decision. If they hadn't and he'd been bumped up from one week to two weeks, he would have had the same penalty as Houli, which would have been insane. Now that the AFL is appealing the Houli penalty, they should also bump Schofield back to two weeks.

4 hours ago, SaberFang said:

Supposedly Henwood was one of the Tribunal members who got Barry Hall off and found the Essendon drug cheats not guilty.

Not hard to see who he takes his orders from. Suffice to say, he isn't going anywhere.

Hold on , Barry Hall had to get off. If I recall correctly, it was low impact, accidental, unintentional, initiated by the action of the St Kilda player and most pertinent of all, it was in play ( we'll sort of ).  And Barry had to be allowed to play in the Grand Final. Totally correct decision !!!!!!!!

Oh and he's an outstanding human being !!!!

If you squeeze a lemon, only lemon juice comes out. If you squeeze a orange, only orange juice comes out. When the world squeezes you, only what's inside comes out, in Houli's case, that was an elbow to the head. It was in his character. 4 weeks.

The hypocrisy being piled upon hypocrisy is near beyond belief. 

I do believe it however as the AFL has form.

One rule for one...........

Just said on the news Richmond used part of turnbull speech where he said nice things about houli as a character reference, turnbull office not impressed lol what a bunch of dodgy pricks hope he gets 6 weeks

4 hours ago, sue said:

The sooner the MRP & Tribunal are composed of people who aren't former players the better.  Ex-players have too much invested in teams and people they know and love or hate on top of their own playing history and egos about how tough they were etc.   It is a sign of how amateur the AFL is that it doesn't see this. 

In fact if there was a model where ex-players had almost nothing to to with the AFL admin, yet the game wasn't totally prostituted to corporate dollars, I'd say remove ex-players entirely.   hmm, maybe too late for that already.

The whole system was compromised by Mark Evans, the then GM of Footy Ops, when he stated that he didn't want players suspended, and hence miss out on the chance to win the Brownlow, for making contact that wasn't deemed forceful. That led to a plethora of fines being allocated for incidents that previously would have copped 2 weeks. Basically, it's become a free-for-all as long as it's not considered forceful. 

It also led to high profile players like Fyfe getting off for actions that clearly warranted a suspension.

It is great that the AFL has shown some strength by appealing the Houli decision but has been negligent in not appealing the result of both cases. Last night the tribunal had painted itself into a corner by only giving Houli two weeks for a frightening and brutal act. How could they then give Schofield two weeks for an incident that was so minor in comparison. Schofield's act was careless and stupid. He did strike Clarry but if they gave two weeks for the first hearing and they had no where to go. The Houli decision directly influenced the second case and both cases should have been reheard. But of course the rights of a Melbourne player and his reputation appear to have no importance to the power players at the AFL. It was great that our coach stood up for Clarry and our medical staff. 

Dangerous precedent set by saying one person is better than another and who you know is important. Breaks all the fundamentals of equity and justice.

Mother Theresa should have got 4 weeks for that.

5 hours ago, brendan said:

Just said on the news Richmond used part of turnbull speech where he said nice things about houli as a character reference, turnbull office not impressed lol what a bunch of dodgy pricks hope he gets 6 weeks

Character references during sentencing are generally from a friend or family member who have known the accused for their whole life. Turnbull wouldn't have even known who Houli was until he shook his hand when he and Houli attended a function together earlier in the week.

Turnbull's speech would have also been written by someone else, it's quite pathetic that an excerpt of the speech was allowed to be admitted during the hearing. 

The system is in need of a massive overhaul and restructure (but we already knew is).

Odds on a Ramadan Fasting round next year ?

Trunbull to toss the coin , 10 to televise.