Whenever I see an outcome like this I blame the Sydney Swans and Andrew Dunkley, who was suspended after the prelim leading to the 1996 Grand Final, successfully sought an injunction in the Supreme Court, played in the Grand Final and then was subsequently suspended for three weeks for his act in the prelim.
The AFL has constructed a tribunal system that mirrors the courts, in part, to prevent that from happening again. A player can’t argue they have been denied natural justice if natural justice is baked into the tribunal process.
But by setting up an independent appeals board, stacked with QCs, you increase the chances of the sorts of procedural defences used by Carlton’s Counsel being successful.
There's no lesson to be learned by players from this appeal decision, only a lesson for the AFL's Counsel that if they are going to ask for a player to be suspended for a bump, they need to establish before the Tribunal that the player indeed bumped.
I thought it was a two-week bump, and there has been a lot of blow-back for the AFL from people who feel the same. I reckon ‘the AFL’ would be fuming with this decision by the independent appeals board – but that’s the price you pay for independence.
I think the AFL is going to have to ask itself which is the greater risk: win-at-all-costs clubs taking them to court every other finals series, or not being able to enforce its own rules to protect players?
