AFL media started the campaign last night on AFL360 then On the Couch. The 1000 goals is a narrative they want to finish the year with.
Buddy is given every excuse and every bit of generous leeway with every offence. In an era when responsibility rests with the player to ensure his actions don’t endanger another players welfare, how can arguably the most skilled player to play the game in the last 15-20 years, not have the skill to avoid these actions?
He has the skill to leap over a player in full flight, and continue to bounce the ball, then kick truly from wide outside fifty for a goal, yet he doesn’t have the skill set to know what he is doing with his elbows in a tackle. How that can be graded careless is beyond me.
If that is low impact well I’m not sure where you draw the line on medium, and then through to high impact. The only escalation I can see here is a concussion or a broken jaw.
Go back and look at his front on head high contact on Newman for Carlton. This is text book what we want eliminated from the game. Once you’ve seen his effort, then compare to his team mates hit on Day from Hawthorn, for which Wicks copped a week.
He followed this up with a similar but not as bad front on bump on Lienhert(sorry unsure of spelling).
Treacy copped a fine for having a cheap shot in a marking contest two weeks ago, fair dogs. Buddy took out Wilson on the weekend with no real interest in contesting the mark. He knew he was out of that contest, and willingly chose to hurt the player.
He is playing with zero regard for the safety of opposing players. Based on this outcome I can see why. He does it because he can.