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.