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Rooey Free to Play 🔴🔵😈

Melbourne Football Club. The true custodians of Australian Rules Football.

The rationale for overturning the conviction is epic, basically says: dear AFL, you probably should’ve updated your laws to reflect what you want to happen, instead of trying to use a confused and innocent future-premiership CHF’s actions to do the job you should’ve probably done over summer.

Now, he got what he deserved, Mr Powell.

Excellent. Now we should troll the league by resting him this week.

Cudos to the Club for how they handled this. Did not back down and showed strong support to JVR.

Awesome stuff from the club. very pleased. This hearing had the potential to change more than just the fabric of the game. Supporters are growing tired of the ongoing meddling of the rules and the excessive amount of umpiring of our game. Strewth, if we sanitise this game too much it will lose pretty much all of its Uniqueness

G E T S T u F F E D G L E E S O N

Sorry to Rooyan your day @Will Powell !!!

Glad with decision but it is a mess that it had to go this far. The fact he was cited for striking is just beyond comprehension.

Jeff Gleeson can GAGF, honestly.

Reasonable player gets 1 second. 3ex player lawyers need 130 minutes to decide.

I took the time to sign up as a demonland life member. Thanks so much to everyone that keeps this site up and running. I spend way too much time on it.

Sorry I've given up.

Tribunal have just realized they used a Queens Council instead of a Kings Council. We have to come back tomorrow.

me:

Which ever way this pans out, our club has done the right thing in fighting this for once.

Did I hear that someone around here is looking for a KC?

great news i don't have to join isis now allah be praised

Very proud of our mighty club tonight, that includes Simon Goodwin, Brad Green and our senior management for making a stand against a very poor decision to suspend JVR for an action that is part and parcel of this great game of ours. Well done MFC and all MFC members and supporters for showing your anger for all to see, there is Justice but you have to fight for it.!!!

Correct - as you and some others have pointed out this process was an appeal and the advocate for the MFC had the task of convincing the appeals board that Tuesday’s Tribunal erred in their interpretation of the AFL’s rules. “The tribunal chairman Jeff Gleeson KC said that although it was reasonable for the young Demon to assess the situation in the way he did they decided ‘a reasonable player would have seen that in spoiling the ball in the way he did would almost inevitably have resulted in a forceful blow to Ballard’s head’”. Besides being complete and utter gobbledygook, Gleeson was attempting to rewrite the rule book. If allowed to stand, the Tribunal’s decision would have forever stood as a grave injustice.

Great news; this was, IMO undoubtedly, the right result.

Cleared!!! I'm ecstatic for the kid. Must be a huge relief, and great to see the game's original club taking a stand on the fabric of the game.

Interesting thought. It takes over 75 minutes for 3 ex player lawyers to decide if a player did the wrong thing in one second. Makes the whole thing seem totally ridiculous.

well actuallllleeeee.... cognitive dissonance is the state of mind where someone is unable to reconcile a strongly held belief with clearly apparent facts. It can send people entirely mad if not resolved, and generally the only resolutions are to either abandon the belief or reject the facts. Once you make a choice to reject facts that you rationally accept, you're absolutely stonkered psychologically and it continues to spiral horribly. Almost impossible for an individual to dig their way out again without professional 'deprogramming' help or massive traumatic catharsis. For example, if you're an AFL executive believing that the tribunal system, umpiring, and the laws of the game are well administered, right now you are in a situation where you have to convince yourself that the entire Australian Football community doesn't understand the spirit of the game. Cue megalomonia, paranoia, the works.

If JVR wasn't already a MFC cult legend, he's definitely that now. Need to feed thIs guy the ball at every opportunity and help him to kick a bag of 5+ goals on the weekend. Would be the best reward for the week he's just had.

That will help culture and show the players they are always supported by their club and fans. Don't underestimate how all of the boys would be feeling now, especially JVR.

So they found that what we said on Tuesday night was correct.

This is bigger than the toppling of the Berlin Wall. Historians will write about this day.

So Brad Green was correct.

I think the exact opposite is true. The competition and everyone who loves the game of Australian Football will be grateful for our stand.

Live scenes from the appeals board

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.

I just watched the replay for the first time and my first thought was what an effort to cover that much ground to get in the contest. JVR is the kind of player we want.

Our KC did well to not focus on the injury (or lack thereof) and to press the case focused around rule 18.5.3 which gives JVR immunity to any physical outcome as he was contesting the ball (as stated by the tribunal). Well played sir, justice prevails.

Hawthorn, round 9, MCG

Can we open a post appeal thread now please?

I’ve aged 12 years but

They'd like to think that, but they're probably just average.

Nice 'flex' from the Dees - as it all happens concurrently...

If I had a $1 everytime Frosty was mentioned in this manner on a Demonland forum. I will always have a soft spot for him.

The future of the game is on trial tonight. Let's see which way they go.