I’ll keep it to dot points.
i. “there will be no profanity or hyperbole in this letter.” Incorrect.
ii. “The tribunal and match review panel are single-handedly destroying the game.” Odd way to start if you’ve promised no hyperbole. The AFL had the highest attendance ever this year. The on-field play is pretty good. There are plenty of things wrong with the game, but on balance it’s in a good place and if it is being destroyed, it’s not single-handedly by the Tribunal.
iii. Then there is a scree about the different considerations the tribunal has to make in arriving at a decision. I think it’s to demonstrate he’s confused. I don’t doubt he’s confused, but I suspect it’s because he’s conflating different incidents. I’m wondering at this stage if Hamish knows what hyperbole means.
iv. “My brother is never going to play football again in his whole life because of a jumping smother that turned into a bump that collided with his head.” No, he’s not playing again because he had 6 concussions in a few years. To isolate Angus’ retirement to one incident ignores a lot of what we know about concussions.
v. “I can put my feelings for Angus aside.” C’mon Hamish, be honest wit yourself. Of course you can’t, and that’s ok. Angus basically threatened to get on a plane to beat up Gaff. That’s what you want from a brother. Not objectivity.
vi. “That was as big a defining moment for the tribunal as I can remember, and you went with protecting the sanctity of the game over the protection of the player.” The tribunal ruled on Maynard’s hit according to the rules in place at the time. That’s all they could do. The AFL didn’t like Maynard getting off so they changed the rules. Again, that’s all they could do. The next time the exact circumstance comes up again, let’s say in 2032, the tribunal will make a ruling based on the rules in place at that time. It obviously has to weight the sanctity of the game against safety.
vii. “Peter Wright and Toby Green, four weeks and one week respectively for football acts with not a whole lot of difference. Jeremy Finlayson got less than Peter Wright for a homophobic slur which once again highlights that nobody at the AFL really knows what's happening at the tribunal, you just make it up as you see fit.” I won’t go on about it, but my biggest bugbear is the call for consistency, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to provide. Each incident is different, and conflating homophobic speak with a bump in a marking contest, as evidence of inconsistency is self-evidently dumb. C’mon Hamish.
viii. “Matt Crouch has been given a week for picking the ball up the way every single kid playing football is taught to do it. There is goal square footage of Jesse Hogan punching his defender in the face, and he has admitted to swinging with force to try and push his opponent.” Again, conflating different instances with different rules applied to them is just really silly. There is no charge for attempted striking. Imagine how much inconsistency there would be if there was? The Tribunal would have to determine if every arm swing was an ‘attempt’ at striking. The Tribunal decided that Jesse’s strike was so glancing it wasn’t a strike. I think that’s reasonable.
ix. I’m with him about the Charlie Cameron thing. I think the Tribunal just didn’t want to disappoint Eddie Betts. Again, lost in the call for consistency is that notion that individuals making individual decisions as human beings make mistakes. I think they made a mistake here by not thinking through what it meant for the subsequent decisions. I bet if they could take it back they would.
x. “This is my last point and I am going to swear so beep this out if you want.’ Hamish, you just promised you weren’t going to swear. If you want to find consistency, how about starting with being consistent between the start and end of your letter?
xi. “You can't pick and choose when to dismiss certain things and when to change your views on others.” I’m sure to him this sounds like a point, but it’s just a whinge with no weight behind it other than he’s disappointed with the decisions on a number of completely different decisions.
The letter is 80% nonsense.
