Still trying to get Goddard rubbed out.
Get over it Tim. He's never going to play for Carlton.
Nobody knows where or how Goddard made contact with Mitchell because of Channel 10's incompetence. They only showed two replays.
One from behind Goddard which doesn't show the point of contact but does show Goddard's unclenched hand following through.
The other from behind Mitchell which also doesn't show the point of contact but clearly shows Mitchell's head being crashed into by Brett Renouf's elbow as he goes past. The commentary team were too busy trying to nail Goddard to notice the contact from Renouf despite the multiple replays.
The view that would have either convicted or cleared Goddard was from side on. Less than a second before the incident they cut away from a close up view to a long shot. If you are really interested in the truth, find that footage Tim.
But as you have proven time and time again, with your feeble attempts at putting down our club, YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
Tribunal's double standards
Tim Lane | September 28, 2008
GRAND final week is a seductive time. This year, there have been two Victorian clubs to talk about for the first time in eight years, the perfect formula of an established champion still at its peak facing a rapidly rising contender, the galaxy of stars and the lingering magic of 1989. So blinding has been the hype that a most extraordinary outcome from the AFL judicial system raised little more than a chuckle.
We come to expect controversy at this time of year, partly because the judicial bar seems to be placed at a different height from week to week. The AFL confirmed again on Thursday that it metes out varying levels of justice according to the stage on which crimes are committed. Grand final misdemeanours, according to the AFL Tribunal chairman, will be judged twice as harshly by the match review process as those committed during the rest of the season.
This is done, in part, to limit the possibility of violent incidents on the game's major showpiece occasion. It is also an understandable means of deterrence, within a football code that has long refused to embrace the order-off rule in a winner-take-all game. One wonders, though, whether there is an unspoken dilution factor for penalties incurred in preliminary finals. These, of course, are the games that determine who will and won't perform on the showpiece day.
How many games would St Kilda's Brendon Goddard have missed had his hit on Hawk Sam Mitchell in the third quarter of last Saturday night's preliminary final occurred yesterday?
Well, it's simple. The match review panel's finding last Monday assessed the offence as being worth 125 points before a 25% discount for an early plea, so Goddard would have drawn 250 points, reduced to 187.5. He would, thus, have incurred a one-week penalty. Not.
Goddard stood toe-to-toe with Mitchell and decked him with a crude, forceful right. Mitchell went down and stayed down for some time. He wasn't quite as dazed as West Coast's Brent Staker during a certain game in Sydney earlier this year, but had it been a boxing match, he wouldn't have required the eight to be mandatory, and he might not have beaten the referee's count. The incident was captured by two Channel Ten's cameras. A replay reveals the blow landing at approximately 13 minutes 40 seconds on the countdown clock, Mitchell still lying senseless at 13:33, and climbing unsteadily to his feet at about 13:30.
I was moved to raise the question during the commentary as to how the football world would have responded had it been Barry Hall who delivered that blow. I'm sure the answer is there would have been uproar. My broadcasting colleague, Robert Walls, took the view that Goddard would be missing a number of matches at the start of next season, while Mike Sheahan, his Monday night partner on Fox Sports' On the Couch, likened the blow to something that might have been delivered on TV Ringside in the early 1970s by Kahu Mahanga. Sheahan also described the AFL match review panel as "the comedy festival".
Obviously, the panel wants every one of its judgements to be respected, yet how is one to remain respectful of this sort of outcome? The panel didn't even get the quarter right, referring in its assessment to the incident having occurred in the fourth quarter. It assessed the impact of the contact as low, yet Mitchell was still groggy at the count of seven and in the act of regaining his feet at 10. The panel also assessed the contact as being to the body and, yes, I suppose it was: to the head of the body.
About 700,000 people watched the game on television. Does the match review panel and the AFL care that so many have been treated as though they are blind? And do they care about the confused, self-interested message they send out to the same public they like to present themselves to as a socially aware and responsible organisation? What if parents were equally opportunistic in the way they apply discipline within their families? What are those who dispense justice for the AFL saying in delivering such lenient outcomes one week, then tougher than normal ones the next, according to circumstances?
Actually, what they are saying is easily understood and perfectly clear. They are telling us that at the pointy end of the season, it's not the rules that count, all that counts is image and marketability.
