You're right Yeti. I watched the tackle instead of reading the Nyhuis report. It’s hard to see what the difference in impact is. Grey was out for longer and looked like he was dead, but it's hard to parse the two tackles for impact. Maybe it came down to the medical report. Port seemed particularly shirty about the Nyhuis tackle.
Mushroom, for better or worse the AFL has taken on the language (and elements) from the law of negligence. There are four elements, and they seem to be applied in the AFL as follows:
i. Duty - All players owe a duty of care to other players;
ii. Breach - The player breached that duty by acting or failing to act in a certain way;
iii. Causation - The player's actions (or inaction) caused another player harm or injury; and
iv. Suspension - The other player was harmed or injured as a result of the other player's action, and an assessment of the degree of that harm is made).
Where there is no impact or injury to another player, there is no offence. The AFL instead relies on a broad ‘misconduct’ charge which leads in a fine.
What you appear to be asking for is a suspension for any breach, regardless of whether harm is caused or not. In a game as physical as footy, I'm not sure how that works without players missing games all over the place. If you also hold the view that Freo is on the receiving end of worse outcomes than other teams, I'm not sure adding suspensions for any player not acting in an appropriate way would help Freo. Ballas would never have made it to 100 games.
Without all four elements, you add a great deal more incidents being brought before the MRP/MRO, with only a subjective 'did they act in a bad way' test. It would be chook lotto.
