See your reasoning.saint vince wrote:The difference between the two is that in the Chapman incident the tagger was being punched and in the Baker incident it was the tagger doing the punching.
The AFL will not admit it but they are allowing provacation by a tight checking opponent be a defense to a report and are lowering the suspensions in these case.
Eg: Hall and his headlock should hav got weeks but because the big girl was being pushed a few times he got off.
Johnson got less for hitting baker than he deserved because baker had been hitting him earlier. (forgetting the fact that Johnson broke his hand before the first bounce on Bakers face).
The Afl hate taggers an will do anything to stop them including letting other players committ offenses against them and get away with it as was the case when 7 collingwood thugs ran at CJ before the bounce in the Collingwood game then he defended himself and got free awarded aganst him.
But it means - if you're right - that the MRP is not even close to being the independent construct it's meant to be. That is, it is leaned on by a higher organisation to reflect a preferred set of on-field values.
Pretty much a farce whichever way you look at it.
Some may scoff, but perhaps the best thing to happen would be for someone crucial to Collingwood to be given 4 weeks for something Baker-like in Rd 22 or a Qualifier. With their resources they'd go legal and and the 'system' would be shown up for being the swiss cheese wank that it is.
