I'm not Gil's biggest fan, but this is what he said:
"I welcome the Tribunal verdict that it was intentional conduct and handing down a sanction. [But] if I’m honest, I find it hard, personally, to reconcile how it can be intentional conduct that was aggressive, demonstrative and disrespectful - it was found to be all of those things - and then only be three weeks. As the CEO of the League, I'm saying to community leagues and others that I find the decision perplexing. I’ve spoken to the lawyers about our appeal rights clearly. They’re looking at that at the moment. We won’t muck around. You don’t appeal lightly, so we’ll get some advice, contextualise it all, and make a decision as quick as we can,"
The next day or so they appealed in the basis the sentence was manifestly inadequate, which is just a fancy way of summarising what Gil said. As far as I'm aware, he hasn't said anything since.
I don't understand the accusation of it all being a show trial. If this was all arranged behind closed doors there's no way the Tribunal hands down a decision the CEO and GC of the AFL are furious about, to the point they need to rather embarrassingly appeal their own Tribunal's sentence. Rather, that's exactly the sort of messiness that happens when the Tribunal is acting independently.
The problem was the Tribunal's decision, as Gil pointed out, was perplexing. As Shane pointed out at the time, on the wording of the charge 'intentional' contact was a little difficult to make out, but a lessor charge only carried a fine. I think the Tribunal tried to have a bob each way and find Toby guilty, but keep the suspension to a minimum. I think that ended up doing Toby a disservice in the end.
