2 minutes ago, Redleg said:

In his evidence, which was impressive for its candour, he said that he looked up and watched the ball as he ran to the contest. A few steps before arriving at the contest he took his eyes off the ball and look at, or in the immediate direction of Ballard, who was shaping to mark the ball.

We are not critical of van Rooyen for doing this; it was reasonable for him to look at Ballard and the drop of the ball and assess the situation. We find his objective at the moment of, and prior to impact, was to spoil the mark. However we also find that a reasonable player would have foreseen that in spoiling the way he did, it would have almost inevitably resulted in a forceful blow to Ballard's head.

So they aren't critical of JVR taking his eye off the ball momentarily. So maybe it's not as nuanced as I thought. It comes down to their view that a reasonable player would have foreseen that such action would almost inevitably result in a forceful blow to the head. I agree that that seems a ridiculous conclusion because this type of attempted spoil happens all the time.

It's a circus as usual.

38 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

I think you're overlooking one thing ... it's the AFL tribunal! Where common sense goes to die.

And sadly, that is why I am not very confident about what the outcome will be tonight. (I oh so hope I am wrong…again)

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

 

Also to call it striking is bizarre and clearly incorrect - If he had hit the ball first it could not be striking. And he missed it by mm. Plus the tribunal admitted it was a genuine spoil.

The case has so many holes it is difficult to see how he can't get off

The Tribunal has found that it was a genuine spoiling attempt, as allowed in the rules. The spoil was either made by touching the ball, or being within mm's of it.

He was charged with striking.

The Tribunal then found and this is the critical point, that in his genuine legal attempt to spoil, a "reasonable player" would have determined, that contact with the potential to cause injury was inevitable. They then found that the contact with the underarm of the bicep and arm pit, was in fact a strike, as because it was "inevitable" it wasn't incidental contact, which is allowed. They then found, that the alleged sore neck was a severe injury, even though the Suns said he was fine and trained and would play friday. They have in fact found that potential injury, should be graded as severely as actual injury, like concussion for example in the Rioli case yesterday and also in play no different to off the ball.

The decision is a nonsense, as the rules say nothing about the reasonable player determining outcomes in a legal action. All done in a split second too, without a computer to carry around and feed info into.

They have simply made this up on the night. I find it pathetic.

Illegal actions are defined in the rules and they have just made up completely new law.

If this stands, any player involved in a legal action, must instantly determine if there is potential for injury in the action before committing to it and if there is, presumably walk away.

Therefore flying for a mark from behind, could see a knee to the head of the guy in front. This then is banned. Kicking the ball, could see a follow through of the boot, hurting a player, or the ball being kicked into someone's body or head causing injury. This must be banned. Tackling can obviously cause injuries, so it must be banned. All of these things and many others are clearly foreseeable and must/would be banned. 

They have found that legal actions could cause injury, that a reasonable player would know that, evaluate that and then not do the action. In other words every action allowed on the field is banned, if it has the potential to cause injury and the reasonable player should then not do it.

I think you get the drift. Footy could only continue as a "completely non contact " game and even where no contact, in my examples above, if possibility of injury, that action would also be banned. 

I think the AFL understand this now and I would be very confident of a successful appeal.

How much are the TV rights for a non contact footy game worth?

When you talk about bad AFL Tribunal decisions, this is arguably the worst of all time, as Jono Brown predicted.

Edited May 11, 20232 yr by Redleg

Targeting such a young player seems to be a very transparent move by the AFL to phase-in AFL Lite™️. 

Suspend a player in their late-twenties line this and they’d probably just seek out a new career  That, or attempt to un-learn years of training. The AFL likely see 19 year-old as capable of re-learning their style of play  

It all makes depressing sense, given how Australia is sleepwalking into one of the more risk-averse societies in the developed world. 

I have no issue at all with the AFL trying to make the game safer - as long as interpretations are clear to all, consistent and are done / instigated pre-season ; and as long as the core fabric of our game ie the contest is not taken away.

Making up BS rules and interpretations mid-season, on the fly, is just pathetic and so amateurish. The AFL should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Let's hope common sense prevails tonight. Please free Roo.

Edited May 11, 20232 yr by Neil Crompton

We all hoped JVR would develop and become a game changer for us - seems he could become a real game changer for a whole set of other reasons now as well. His profile has certainly enlarged over the last week.

 

4 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

I have no issue at all with the AFL trying to make the game safer - as long as interpretations are clear to all, consistent and are done instigated pre-season ; and as long as the core fabric of our game ie the contest is not taken away.

Making up BS rules and interpretations mid-season, on the fly, is just pathetic and so amateurish. The AFL should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Let's hope common sense prevails tonight. Please free Roo.

I do. 

I’m really not a fan of this burgeoning mindset that people should be able to enter things without taking any risks. 

Aspiring AFL players should know that they’re signing up for a physically-fierce competition, and that serious injury is a potential factor. Don’t like the sound of that? Don’t play. 

4 hours ago, layzie said:

Whatever happens I'm very proud of the way MFC has handled this. I know some people were worried we may not appeal and demanded we 'show some balls' but I never really doubted we'd do the right thing on this one.

 

I see it from the other angle - if we had not appealed there would have been a members' riot. And there does seem to be a very sound legal basis (which is what is needed) to make the appeal, and a reasonable chance of success - the facts are pretty straight forward - it now goes to the laws of the game.

I am not sure that our Footy Director should be tweeting about it though. Pass the matter over to the lawyers - this will be won or lost tonight in the Appeals Board hearing, not in the Twittersphere.

8 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

Making up BS rules and interpretations mid-season, on the fly, is just pathetic and so amateurish.

They do it all the time. It can hardly be amateurish when they're such experts at it.

8 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

The AFL should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Laughter is the best medicine. Thanks for brightening my day.

 

14 minutes ago, Redleg said:

I think the AFL understand this now and I would be very confident of a successful appeal.

How much are the TV rights for a non contact footy game worth?

Has anyone stopped watching footy yet as a result of this case? No? So where's the problem?

7 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

They do it all the time. It can hardly be amateurish when they're such experts at it.

Laughter is the best medicine. Thanks for brightening my day.

 

Has anyone stopped watching footy yet as a result of this case? No? So where's the problem?

How many games have been on TV since tuesday?

1 hour ago, Red and Blue Flame said:

Nearly at 1k signatures. If everyone could share the petition in their social networks, amongst football fans. We are really only going to make a difference if we are 100k+

https://www.change.org/p/free-jacob-van-rooyen?redirect=false

Thanks to all who have signed so far :)

Signed.

What's the next hearing going to be about some bloke kicking the ball into another blokes head?

4 minutes ago, Redleg said:

How many games have been on TV since tuesday?

So no-one then. Move along.

(In case it wasn't obvious, I am paraphrasing the attitude of AFL house.)

I also find it amusing that one of the grounds we will rely upon tonight is that "the decision was so unreasonable that no tribunal could have come to that decision having regards to the evidence before it".

The Tribunal said that Roo, being a reasonable player, could have foreseen that he would make forceful contact to Ballard's head.

Reasonable is key....

We are being used as an example, just like what happened to a young Trengove and Viney. Absolute BS.

7 minutes ago, Hawk the Demon said:

The Tribunal said that Roo, being a reasonable player, could have foreseen that he would make forceful contact to Ballard's head.

Reasonable is key....

We should blindside the tribunal and make the case that JvR is an UNreasonable player who won't help pack up the footies at training, and never offers to buy anyone a coffee.

I feel like JVR has copped a "drive by" in the concussion lawsuit against the AFL

Can someone hand out ‘sack the MRP’ posters to all fans this weekend? I’d love to see that!

Bartels on Footy Classified:

 

 

While striving to make a contest, of course, at some point, the player will take his eyes off the ball for a split second, so that he can gauge where the ball is, relative to the player in question.  Simple commonsense.  Then again, commonsense does not seem to prevail with the MRO or Tribunal.  There was clearly no intent to hurt Ballard nor did JVR target him.

28 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

We should blindside the tribunal and make the case that JvR is an UNreasonable player who won't help pack up the footies at training, and never offers to buy anyone a coffee.

Make that UNreasonable player a defender - gives nothing away.

Do we know who is on the appeals board tonight?

5 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Do we know who is on the appeals board tonight?

Lets hope these three men - Wayne Henwood, Stephen Jurica, Richard Loveridge - have some form of common sense as ex-footballers/lawyers.

They are the appeals board members.

16 hours ago, DubDee said:

assuming JVR gets off i think 2 weeks for Rioli is ok. tried to block, a trailing arm smacked Ridley by accident. freak incident 

I don't. The Rioli incident was off the ball. I believe any incident which is not in play should cop extra weeks. I'd go with two additional weeks, although I could understand others might suggest one extra is enough. My thinking is that incidents such as this Rioli one are far more problematic for the game than offences which occur in the course of play. So, if it were up to me I would change the rules so that the Rioli incident would have resulted in 4 weeks made up of 2 weeks for the offence itself plus 2 for being off the ball.  

The critical issue is the Tribunal's elevation of the foreseeability of harm above the reasonable action of the player.

This is a contact sport. Suspending players who engage in reasonable football actions simply because it is foreseeable that the action might cause injury is antithetical to the sport. It is also, I expect we'll argue tonight, an error of law because the AFL's Laws of the Game make it clear that players should be entitled to reasonably contest the ball. Once it is accepted that JVR reasonably looked at Ballard for the purpose of contesting the ball, and reasonably attempted to spoil, it should not matter that it was foreseeable he might hit Ballard in the head.