Christian gives the appearance of being of very limited intelligence and cannot explain why two almost identical incidents attract different penalties.

He has been there far too long and becomes more inconsistent every week. 
 

Time to move him on.   

Hunter does appear to have his eyes on Rozee but that attribute has always irked me, that eyes were on the footy not the player. 

Hunter was at the ball first and Rozee led with this head. 

Listening to Christensen on SEN right now. He has no freaking clue. He says "not clear" on whether Butters made high contact with Banfield. 

The conspiracy theory is that the MRO refrained from penalising Butters because to do so required high contact, but a free wasn’t paid on the night. Second week in a row the umpiring in a Fremantle close loss was under the microscope. 

King going off on the first crack about Butters getting off, even said it was because he's a high profile player.

THE BUTTERING RAM

A short graphic novel

Mate, may I please have some duty of care please now?

No.

Look at me going for this ball... over here.

360 degree 'low impact' spin from contact to the face.

Still looking for that other ball.

Corruption plain and simple, sub-conciously or not they have different outcomes for different people depending who they are.  Any one who looks at what's going on can see that.

Just not sure what anyone can do about it.  It's really not on and very very unfair.  That's all anyone wants, pure fairness across the board.  Is that just too much to ask?

Further proof that the AFL protects high profile players and Brownlow hopefuls 

If this same action was done by a nobody, say I dunno Hunter, it would result in suspension. And has.

 

  On 15/04/2024 at 00:42, loges said:

King going off on the first crack about Butters getting off, even said it was because he's a high profile player.

He went further than that, too. He asked if the AFL is protecting the head, or the Brownlow.

https://7news.com.au/sport/afl/david-king-launches-at-afl-with-inflammatory-brownlow-claim-after-zak-butters-cleared-by-mro-c-14314901.amp

Edited April 15, 20241 yr by WalkingCivilWar

  On 15/04/2024 at 00:55, Young Angus said:

Just not sure what anyone can do about it.

Only thing we can do is stop turning up to games, will never happen though.

  On 15/04/2024 at 01:26, Dee Zephyr said:

Only thing we can do is stop turning up to games, will never happen though.

AFL equivalent of a Royal Commission in to how these things are judged.  I don't think it would take much to see that what has been happening has no shred of consistency or fairness about it.  But is that really in the AFL's best interests I wonder...they probably like the drama of it all too.

i just saw the other incident that had Crouch rubbed out for a week. I couldn't believe that the excuse was that one player had went with his hands (butters) down to collect the ball whilst the other (crouch) didn't until milliseconds after the impact was made. 

We talk about technique and the ability to cause significant injury and you have Butters going at speed launching himself into that contest. I think its another way that players will now 'disguise' intent to make contact. Similar to Maynards 'smother'.

The AFL just need to make it black and white. If contact with head is made, you are in trouble. You cannot glean intent of a player, so we should stop expecting umpires and MRO to do such a thing. Assess the action and impact and give a penalty fitting the outcome. 

  On 15/04/2024 at 01:00, Jaded No More said:

Further proof that the AFL protects high profile players and Brownlow hopefuls 

If this same action was done by a nobody, say I dunno Hunter, it would result in suspension. And has.

 

Kozzie doing the same action gets 3-4 without any question.

Hunter as mentioned got suspended for the same thing.

  On 15/04/2024 at 00:55, Young Angus said:

Corruption plain and simple, sub-conciously or not they have different outcomes for different people depending who they are.  Any one who looks at what's going on can see that.

Just not sure what anyone can do about it.  It's really not on and very very unfair.  That's all anyone wants, pure fairness across the board.  Is that just too much to ask?

  On 15/04/2024 at 03:35, Gawndy the Great said:

i just saw the other incident that had Crouch rubbed out for a week. I couldn't believe that the excuse was that one player had went with his hands (butters) down to collect the ball whilst the other (crouch) didn't until milliseconds after the impact was made. 

We talk about technique and the ability to cause significant injury and you have Butters going at speed launching himself into that contest. I think its another way that players will now 'disguise' intent to make contact. Similar to Maynards 'smother'.

The AFL just need to make it black and white. If contact with head is made, you are in trouble. You cannot glean intent of a player, so we should stop expecting umpires and MRO to do such a thing. Assess the action and impact and give a penalty fitting the outcome. 

That's the insane thing, insanely transparent too, there is no way you can know the intent of a player and I'm sure most players don't want to hurt someone they are just in the moment and running very fast and reacting just as fast.  Intent should have nothing to do with it, the only consistent thing to do is look at the action and the outcome.  

Make it consistent ffs!

I thought Hunter did nothing wrong last year. He was only just second to a loose ball and pulled up and turned to protect himself at the last minute. As soon as Hunter realised he was going to collide with a kamikaze Rozee, he decelerated. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time IMO.

I felt what Butters did was worse because, while he was seemingly going for the ball, he accelerated into the contest knowing Banfield was wide open and that he would likely collect him if he missed the ball.

Both these incidents are tough to find the right balance though. We have a 360 degree contact sport with an odd shaped ball and we love seeing collisions (but not concussions).

They clearly need to change the rules of the Brownlow because it is obviously part a thinking in the mind of the MRO.

  On 15/04/2024 at 04:39, Young Angus said:

That's the insane thing, insanely transparent too, there is no way you can know the intent of a player and I'm sure most players don't want to hurt someone they are just in the moment and running very fast and reacting just as fast.  Intent should have nothing to do with it, the only consistent thing to do is look at the action and the outcome.  

Make it consistent ffs!

There's no hope with the AFL and intent.  For years we had deliberate out of bounds (ie intent) which although difficult to know a players real intent, was usually interpreted by the umpires reasonably, taking into account pressue and the possibility of skills errors.  But now we have insufficient intent frees given when a player under pressure in a pack kicks it off the side of their boot and it goes out 50m away after bouncing at right angles.

I think there's a clear difference between the two incidents.

Butters was more dangerous and reckless.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1109055/match-review-port-adelaide-gun-zak-butters-learns-fate-adelaide-crow-matt-crouch-banned#amp_tf=From %1%24s&aoh=17131573907428&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afl.com.au%2Fnews%2F1109055%2Fmatch-review-port-adelaide-gun-zak-butters-learns-fate-adelaide-crow-matt-crouch-banned

  On 15/04/2024 at 04:57, sue said:

There's no hope with the AFL and intent.  For years we had deliberate out of bounds (ie intent) which although difficult to know a players real intent, was usually interpreted by the umpires reasonably, taking into account pressue and the possibility of skills errors.  But now we have insufficient intent frees given when a player under pressure in a pack kicks it off the side of their boot and it goes out 50m away after bouncing at right angles.

In our game Tmac just touched the ball as he was trying to pick it up and then it went out of bounds and they called deliberate...one of the most non-deliberate acts I think I've ever seen.  How they can rule on those things makes the mind boggle.

  On 15/04/2024 at 05:13, Young Angus said:

In our game Tmac just touched the ball as he was trying to pick it up and then it went out of bounds and they called deliberate...one of the most non-deliberate acts I think I've ever seen.  How they can rule on those things makes the mind boggle.

We have seen players pick up the ball and run 5 steps, or drag their opponent 5 steps to the boundary, with no problem and other times, a player takes possession of the ball as he crosses the boundary and is pinged.

The one consistent thing in the AFL, is the lack of consistency. 

  On 14/04/2024 at 23:13, monoccular said:

Christian gives the appearance of being of very limited intelligence and cannot explain why two almost identical incidents attract different penalties.

He has been there far too long and becomes more inconsistent every week. 
 

Time to move him on.   

I saw him on the tram after St.Kilda had beaten his Pies. He looked thoroughly miserable. This is of course completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, but hopefully it puts a sparkle in your day.

Edited April 15, 20241 yr by TRIGON

This is just an ongoing blatant disgrace by the MRO now, I wish more of the sports media would have the guts to call it out like King.

  On 15/04/2024 at 03:35, Gawndy the Great said:

The AFL just need to make it black and white. If contact with head is made, you are in trouble.

I was told they had made it clear with Koz getting a week that contact with the head was an automatic week holiday, I did suspect they’d be tying themselves in knots to avoid following that precedent when it was one of the special ones.. 

In regards to the real or perceived perception that the MRO does its best to protect the top players/brownlow chances, I think there is a pretty simple change that could be made.

They should only ban players from winning the brownlow if they are sent direct to the tribunal. Given how easy it is to be suspended these days, you could be slightly off on your attack on the ball and cop a week suspension. Suspensions previously were for acts off the ball or hitting a bloke late, whereas now you can be a millisecond off and get a suspension.

  On 16/04/2024 at 00:32, DistrACTION Jackson said:

In regards to the real or perceived perception that the MRO does its best to protect the top players/brownlow chances, I think there is a pretty simple change that could be made.

They should only ban players from winning the brownlow if they are sent direct to the tribunal. Given how easy it is to be suspended these days, you could be slightly off on your attack on the ball and cop a week suspension. Suspensions previously were for acts off the ball or hitting a bloke late, whereas now you can be a millisecond off and get a suspension.

Logical but it won’t happen yet. The purists / traditionalists are still sitting in critical position on the AFL commission. 

In the next 10-20 years as we ultimately replace every AFL commission member with someone born in this century I think we will see this an other outdated aspects of our game overhauled including fixturing , F/S , trades etc.

  On 16/04/2024 at 00:32, DistrACTION Jackson said:

In regards to the real or perceived perception that the MRO does its best to protect the top players/brownlow chances, I think there is a pretty simple change that could be made.

They should only ban players from winning the brownlow if they are sent direct to the tribunal. Given how easy it is to be suspended these days, you could be slightly off on your attack on the ball and cop a week suspension. Suspensions previously were for acts off the ball or hitting a bloke late, whereas now you can be a millisecond off and get a suspension.

I can’t recall who it was now, maybe King, but he once stated that they should just rid of the “fairest” part of the Brownlow. He stated that if you get suspended for 2,3 or 4 matches etc and can still win the Brownlow, good on you, you have clearly been the best player. Stated that the Brownlow is already compromised anyway, as it’s basically just a midfielder medal.