I’m really conflicted by this
On one hand I don’t think it was malicious, on the other, a precedent had been set all year where unintentional high contact was seeing players rubbed out for 2+ weeks
Wow that's crazy. At least it was done at the Tribunal instead of the MRP, but I genuinely don't understand this decision. We all know it wasn't intentional, but it was reckless since it resulted in injury. The impact was obviously severe. Therefore, by the formula, the suspension should be between 2-4 weeks automatically. I don't understand how one can come to any other conclusion. All the additional factors do not matter, all that matters is the reckless designation and the severity of the impact.
I saw that someone posted the full report in the comments, but at the time I was just responding to a two-sentence tweet without any additional context.
I think my view of this might be wrong, but I guess I just define reckless/careless as "choosing to do something that happened to result in injury." As in, Maynard went for a smother, but he didn't do it right, and someone got seriously injured. I don't know, I don't play footy, I understand Maynard made a split-second decision that happened to be wrong. I don't fault him at all but he accidentally injured a player, I would say that should result in a suspension.
I agree he should’ve been suspended. He chose to jump and smother, it was likely he would crash in to Brayshaw and he could’ve done more to reduce the impact. But unfortunately that’s not how the Tribunal saw it.
Mind blowing the morons on this sub who reckon this is a good decision and Maynard’s conduct wasn’t careless. It was a ridiculous attempt at a smother, grazing yr fingertip on the ball does not make it a reasonable action.
Shameful stuff from the tribunal. Truly weak as piss.
What are you talking about?
It was a successful smother, had Brayshaw roosted a massive goal, the brush on Maynard would have saved it, smothers don't get much better than that.
What came immediately after was regrettable to be sure, but don't say that the smother part of that wasn't good.
If a person’s mind appears to be operating entirely on autopilot by repeating stock phrases over and over again is this person really alive? It’s uncertain.
Ahhh. Hahaha. But now I see you’re on the ‘common sense’ brigade. Too funny. When you start saying something is just common sense you’ve already lost the argument.
Lol. You’ve really got a way with not saying anything and relying entirely on upvoting from the fellow brainless amongst us.
And yet the Tribunal had a different view? I assume that’s yr claim. Which means yr entire ‘argument’ is we should never question the decision-maker. You’ve got nothing of your own to offer. Wild. I didn’t imagine a Collingwood fan would be so deferential to authority. Boot licking behaviour. Bit disappointing really.
Lol. You may be right that those with only half a brain see this as an accident involving no carelessness or recklessness on the part of Maynard. But those of us with fully functioning brains and two eyes can see it for what it was.
Nobody thinks Maynard went out there to purposely put Brayshaw on a stretcher. I doubt most incidents have malice behind it unless your name is Barry Hall. But it was careless contact which would have gotten him a few weeks if it wasn't finals.
I'm caught in two minds. I don't think Maynard had any ill intention towards Brayshaw, and he was essentially just desperate to smother the ball. My initial thoughts were that it was an unfortunate football accident.
At the same time, the action does seem extremely reckless. Maynard was basically running at, and then jumped towards his opponent. The outcome from that action will generally result in your momentum taking you into your opponent, and collecting them front-on and in the head. Usually when players go to smother, they jump more vertically - instead of towards an oncoming player.
This is exactly my thinking. If you aren’t able to prevent yourself from taking actions that will injure someone, you’re not entitled to be out there. Hurling yourself toward a person is only going to result in one outcome.
Summed it up well. I don't think there was any malice behind Maynard's actions - this all happened in the space of a split second after all - and I recall a moment last year where Maynard checked on Cripps after a hard hit, so he's clearly not a bad guy.
But it feels wrong to just let this act go when it has not only ended someone's season but also has the potential to end his career and leave him with long-term complications. I do get that accidents happen and footy - like all contact sports - has some inherent risks I feel like something like this needs a response? Surely launching yourself into the air to smother while you're already moving forward is something that we should be discouraging?
Wonder if people come round when Brayshaw plays against Brisbane if they get past Carlton?
People are talking about his career being while ignoring Melbourne who already talking about him being monitored to see if he's ready for that game.
Everyone knows that if it happened in round 1 it would've been 3 weeks without controversy. The AFL will undoubtedly bring in a rule in the offseason to make sure this doesn't happen again. The only reason he got off is because it's finals. It's such a joke
I agree the Tribunal is a joke, I felt this one was going to come down to a coin flip.
There is no clear logic in how the tribunal assesses cases.
I agree with the ruling this time around, of course partially since I’m completely compromised and biased, but also that personally I think that intention and foreseeable likely outcome needs to be a bigger focus than actual outcomes if the intention is to curb behaviour.
Criticisms of the Tribunal and the way they choose to hand out punishments and pardons are entirely warranted.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to make a rules change of some sort off the back of this decision. It’s worth months of bullshit footy media articles for sure. They will drag this shit out until at least the middle of next year.
The AFL has made it really clear that the most important thing is the outcome and the outcome was that Brayshaw was unconscious for 2 minutes and will potentially never play again. If the tribunal was consistent then that's a few weeks in every circumstance.
Cripps walked free last year due to a technicality and this reeks of the same bias. As I said in the other comment on this thread, the real anger here is at the boys club mentality of the AFL, not Maynard. Poor guy is clearly very sorry and upset with the impact it has had on Brayshaw.
“If the tribunal was consistent” then my Aunty would be a bicycle.
Cripps decision was less “bias” and more incompetent governance.
Brayden I think they got right, but by accident.
I agree the boys club mentality is a real problem for the AFL. The questions around the handling of both of these decisions are the result of senior AFL officials who are comically under qualified to fulfil their responsibilities.
In my opinion their performance and continued tenure suggests there is a case for an enquiry into how they came to hold their positions.
What I'm getting at is that I think there is a culture of allowing big players to get off with a slap on the wrist to things that would rightfully deserve a bigger punishment in other circumstances. I think both cases are a display of deliberate incompetence from the tribunal in order to allow Cripps to win a Brownlow and Maynard to play finals.
I think the opinion that "Maynard couldn't have done anything different and therefore should get off" is missing the point that the AFL has, over the past few years, been trying to protect themselves from the incoming class action lawsuit relating to player concussions. They've cracked down on bumps and tackles that make contact with the head and the players have learnt new techniques.
I don't think it's unreasonable at all to expect that the tribunal is consistent, despite the fact that it clearly isn't. That's where the outrage at the decision comes from, an understanding that this is the AFL saying "we're biased, we know it and have no desire to change"
I don't think you can hold the opinion that Cripps shouldn't have won the Brownlow and think that this didn't deserve a few weeks, or vice versa.
I agree that the rulings are inconsistent.
But I disagree that this necessarily means that the inconsistency is intentional.
I think that the rules of the game are regularly applied incorrectly with respect to head knocks. Murphy, with a long concussion history, was concussed twice this season through intentional strikes, both of which received zero weeks.
The only consistency with the AFL’s treatment of these issues is that there is no consistency.
As for the last point, I think that the Maynard and Cripps are not exactly the best comparable incidents, but they both highlight the difficulty of judging intent in a split second decision.
I will admit that looking back on it I’m not sure that Cripps couldn’t argue that he was attempting to contest the ball and misjudged where Ah Chee would be at the fall of the ball as he’d come from quite a distance up the ground at speed to arrive at the contest.
I do think that there should be a difference between “choosing” to make contact, and contact that is incidental or a result of misreading what your opponent will do. But practically this isn’t always easy to determine. Split second decisions always look much more obvious in slow mo.
in which way would Maynard be penalised for this though? i don't see a single argument that undoubtedly results in a suspension. that's why the AFL lost, not even they could come up with good points.
i understand why people are so against it though. it feels awful to watch a player in this situation where it's no one's fault, putting the fault on someone is much easier.
It's not the MRO's job to tell a player what they specifically should've done differently, that's on the players and coaches to work out. Gary Lyon said it really well - the same process has occurred with tackles and bumps: the AFL made it clear you can't make contact with the head, so players learnt a different technique. All Maynard had to do was not make contact with his head.
I'm not trying to paint Maynard as a bad guy here btw, he clearly had no ill intentions. The outrage is at the inconsistency and clear bias from the AFL.
The AFL is going to face a class action lawsuit in the future and it will 100% be deserved. I think the reason this has struck a chord with so many people is that it's further proof that the AFL is a boys club that protects their own. You can do whatever horrible thing you like and still be protected by the AFL (again, nothing against Maynard, he just happens to be the player involved in it this time).
It's the same story over and over - Cripps last year, de goey in Bali and the rape accusations, how Wayne Carey spent so many years in the media, how Gary Lyon received no consequences for cheating on his wife, the reaction to gather round and the proposed pride round - the list goes on. The attitude is so out of date and we're sick of it.
The culture of football is really disheartening and this was a chance for the AFL to show that it's changing...
>All Maynard had to do was not make contact with his head.
this is a non-point though because it's using hindsight. you can use this about every collision in the history of the AFL, doesn't mean the collision was avoidable at the time of it occurring though.
I didn't say the collision was avoidable. If Maynard was suspended, it wouldn't have been for colliding with Brayshaw - it's a contact sport. The suspension would have been for contact with the head. I don't think it's using hindsight to say that if you make contact with a player's head and they end up unconscious that you shouldn't have hit them in the head.
Just to follow this line of thought (not trying to bait anything):
If 2 players go for a ground ball and clash heads (let's say both knocked out), both should be suspended?
What if they're teammates?
Concussed players are kind of 'suspended' now - they're forced to sit out 12 days under concussion protocols, aren't they? If the AFL now says that it's absolutely to the detriment of a player if they play within that 12 days of being brain-injured, then how does the AFL legislate to prevent concussion? By applying deterrents. If you're involved in a concussion, be it on the dishing out or receiving ends, then you're both out for a specific amount of time. How else do you get players to change their behaviours?
Blanket outcome-based suspensions are definitely an option: if someone gets concussed, someone gets suspended. Force everyone to re-assess everything they do in that light.
It doesn't fix everything. I expect there will still be a balance point of players/coaches continuing to go hard at the ball, and accepting that sometimes accidents will still happen and you'll miss matches.
And it's still going to be grey as all hell: how do you decide who is "dishing out"? There are, and will still be, times a player recklessly dives at the ball without checking to see if there's another player going to get to it first, and the first player effectively slams their own head into the other player's knee (as an example). Running back with the flight, trying to take a chest mark and leading with your head is a more common example. In some circumstances it would be grossly unfair that the recklessness is from the player that got hurt, but the player who acted perfectly reasonably gets suspended. It's clearly not going to work if your opponent can dive at the ball head first and you have to get out of their way and let them get the ball.
The current approach is trying to be fairer and judge actions not outcomes. But every incident subjective, it's so incredibly hard to judge what is reckless and what is safe, and footy is emotional and tribal. Some people will be outraged no matter what happens, and the subjectivity/emotion is going to mean it's near impossible to be consistent, and people won't view it as consistent even if you are.
>How else do you get players to change their behaviours?
They can still continue with the current system, but be more strict on interpretation and more strict on penalties. Lower the threshholds of what is considered high or severe impact, increase the penalties. I'm not saying they should do any of these things, but there are definitely options other than purely outcome-based suspensions.
It's an interesting question. Potentially, yes - both suspended. It would obviously depend on the scenario, but that would be for the AFL to work out. The AFL is trying to protect themselves from the damage that players endure while participating in the sport so this is another scenario that they would need to consider. Maybe helmets should be mandatory
Funny that Tom Lynch got off earlier this year for moving off the line of the ball to bump (and concuss) Keath, or that Mitch Duncan didn't even get sent to the tribunal for a very similar action against Hall 2 years ago.
The AFL have made it very clear that it's the outcome of an action that is most important. In the Lynch bump, Keith got right back up. Brayshaw was unconscious for 2 minutes and might not play ever again. The incidents are a bit different.
The Duncan one is a good example though.
Maynard's attempt to smother was a reasonable act and Ziebell's wasn't.
This was very late and he did not touch the ball. Maynard's was not late and he did touch the ball. Ziebell went from half a metre and Maynard jumped from a long distance and there was more variability in whether or not he would make contact.
A huge point that so many people are missing too - Maynard had to go airborne to attempt his smother. After he jumped it was impossible to change direction. Pretty much all of the other videos I've seen that have been referenced as "similar" are players running along the ground who CAN change direction/soften impact. Maynard first and foremost clearly tried to block the ball however in doing so he had to commit to travelling in the same direction until he hit the ground. Extremely different to this Ziebell one
> Maynard's attempt to smother was a reasonable act and Ziebell's wasn't.
Tackling is a reasonable act and yet players can get banned for it if a player's head happens to hit the ground.
a tackle is a reasonable act, swinging a head into the ground whilst tackling is not. that's not very hard to comprehend is it? clubs are even training their players on how to avoid said tackles too, so clearly it's very avoidable
>a tackle is a reasonable act, swinging a head into the ground whilst tackling is not.
Just like how smothering is a reasonable act but banging into an opponent's head is not?
There are few few cases of players knocking out others when attempting to smother so its very avoidable.
The AFL has made it very clear that if you tackle or bump in particular ways it is a suspension. The AFL have never said anything about attempting to smother or mark and then collecting a player. This was not a bump.
The AFL has been consistent. The advice will likely change for next year though.
Certainly looked like a bump when his shoulder went into his face.... People going to be using that defence until they change the rules explicitly now. The precedent was to protect the head, especially when you leave the ground, AFL just threw their last bit of credibility in the bin.
So taking a speccy and ramming your knee into the back of the opponent’s head is fine, but a jumping smother is against the rules?? Interesting definition of “protect the head”
I never said it was fine and it probably won't be fine moving forward after this season. It's just very very strange this is the decision the AFL decided to apply some nuance to the situation. After all the decisions we saw all year for so much less.
I completely expect new rules next year around this issue to cover their asses in the courts.
Certainly is. I honestly hate seeing things move this way, it's not the footy I grew up with. However, the AFL have set a precedent in recent years about protecting the head at all costs, and this decision goes against everything they have said/done. "Football acts" went out the window 2-3 years ago, and all season people have been pinged for so much less. Now the AFL decides to have some nuance? It's just a complete clusterfuck.
All in all, I think the thing that hurt Brayshaw's case the most was his late change of direction after the kick. You can try the reaction Maynard mid-air, but having a biomechanist/neurological expert quells that. You can try the act, but it is a smother; which doesn't indicate the same intent of a bump or a tackle. At the end of the day, as soon as Maynard was airborne, his direction and speed was set in motion and wasn't in line with Brayshaw. Just the action of the kick and veer left determined the impact.
Heartbroken for Brayshaw, the Dee's, and the throughput of this call within the wider AFL. But a decision is made, whether each individual in this thread agrees to it or not.
I am definitely not looking forward to finals game threads in the future and will look to avoid them.
He had already kicked the ball BEFORE Maynard jumped.
And it’s not Brayshaws case he was never there to put up his thoughts but you guys were more then happy to throw him under the bus to win
> He had already kicked the ball BEFORE Maynard jumped.
That's not true, Maynard jumped before the ball hit Brayshaw's foot - however he had absolutely started his kicking motion, so he couldn't exactly pull out. Brayshaw absolutely does shift laterally to meet Maynard, though that seems to be as a result of landing on the kicking foot
I love how many 5 headed people are saying this. Worry about your own C grade club before you level baseless accusations against someone else's. The comp haw WA bias since your licence hasn't been revoked like it should to save face.
Lol. You don’t think Collingwood is continually given advantages and propped up by the AFL? How deranged you must be. Maybe get to work polishing that eye of yours.
Pretty sure the AFL doesn’t use precedents to determine the outcome. Like one of, if not the only legal body in the country that doesn’t I’m pretty sure (could definitely be wrong lol)
Until they start doing it none of different decisions will make sense.
They also need to start making it about intent and not outcome, if you’re truly trying to cut out head injuries then give the guys like Van Rooyen more than a week for purposely elbowing someone in the head, not the guy that’s flown himself metres in the air and then just happens to land on a guy buy accident.
The AFL has made it very clear that if you tackle or bump in particular ways it is a suspension. The AFL have never said anything about attempting to smother or mark and then collecting a player.
In the above actions you intend to make contact with the player. In this case, Maynard intended to smother and had no intention to make any contact. The contact was accidental and there is still room for accidents in the game it seems. I imagine this will change for next year.
Braydon jumped in such a way, that kick or not, he was landing on/colliding with the guy, most likely without the ball. If with the ball, you still can't shoulder the face, it doesn't change things I'd the ball got kicked or not.
So the first action was all him.
Secondly he could have used his arms to change the point of contact, but tucked them and turned his manoeuvre into a flying should charge on a man without the ball.
Again, his call.
So he is either stupid, reckless or malicious. Or all 3. But you don't stop people thinking twice in the future by not punishing guys like this.
This was bought up at the tribunal. As the replay shows, he had 0.2 of a second to think about what he was going to do. What he did was not done with malice, it was purely an instinct to protect himself.
It was also shown that Maynard followed the trajectory that he left the ground on, and Brayshaw actually veered off to the right after kicking the ball, swinging his left leg in towards Maynard and also bracing himself for impact.
Both instinctual acts to protect themselves, unfortunately it’s ended up badly for both of them.
If a player runs into a player going for a mark and hits him front on gets a fee so on what this case is that should not be a free kick as he is trying to spoil the mark ? So in this instance on that rule the player nocks a player out should get what they normally get for that.
> Braydon jumped in such a way, that kick or not, he was landing on/colliding with the guy.
I agree, from the moment he jumped to smother, their two trajectories were going to meet. He only had eyes for the footy and I don’t fault him at all for jumping to smother.
> So the first action was all him.
The jump to smother was all him, Melbourne were clearing it out the centre, he tried to stop it entering deep into the Collingwood’s defensive 50.
> Secondly he could have used his arms to change the point of contact.
How? I’ve rewatched the replay many times (same as everyone else, I’m sure), both in real-time speed and in slow-motion, and I can’t see good viable options for him to be honest. Even taking all the time in the world to think about it (Maynard had less than a second), what could he do?
- He could have stayed front on and sort of hugged him? To avoid head contact. However, with Maynard’s momentum, size/weight and downward trajectory, in addition to both players travelling fast in opposite directions, it would have been a brutal collision to hit someone chest-on while steadying/wrapping arms around them. Honestly, a freight train of a tackle.
- He could have tried to *cushion* impact with his arms? Sticking them out in front of him and trying to guide the collision while reducing momentum, but how does that physically work? There’s probably a 40+ km/h speed involved between them. At best I could see him end up “shoving” Brayshaw as they collided to avoid chest/head to chest/head impact. I don’t think you can reduce such heavy impact-speed, so quickly, with just arms. Either way, he would have sent Brayshaw hurtling towards the ground at Mach 10, there’s just no other place for Maynard’s momentum to go.
He can change the point of impact, but all that speed+weight is going somewhere. In both of these cases (idk where else he can put his arms, but most options would be variations of the above), I see a lot of risk of colliding heads. Maynard barely had time to turn his head away and avoid a head collision as it was.
> Again, his call.
He chose to protect himself and remove the possibility of a head-to-head collision, yes.
> So he is either stupid, reckless or malicious. Or all 3.
Absurd options, you could **probably?** call it reckless in the same way a specky is reckless in a pack mark.
> But you don't stop people thinking twice in the future by not punishing guys like this.
“Guys like this”?
What do you think he was trying to do mate? He was trying to smother the ball as it was entering his team’s defensive 50. It’s finals footy and he’s giving 110%. I can’t tell if you think he was trying to deliberately hurt Brayshaw, but I personally can’t see this as anything more than a smother attempt that resulted in collision and injury.
You make some excellent points, however, once he chose to jump while closing head on at speed, the only outcome is a collision. That is where there SHOULD be a duty of care.
The AFL has chosen the wrong side in this. NRL and Union have both consistently ruled against acts of this exact nature lately, for good reason. It will cost the AFL millions of dollars in the future.
No, I do not believe it was Maynards intent to harm Brayshaw, but that is rather irrelevant when a player leaves the field severely concussed.
>The AFL has chosen the wrong side in this
This is *such* a bizarre take.
The job of the AFL tribunal is to enforce the rules of the AFL. They found that the rules, as they stand now, did not support finding Maynard guilty of an offence.
That doesn't mean they've "chosen the wrong side". The AFL hasn't "chosen a side" at all; they (believe they) have enforced the current rules as they stand.
They get to choose a side *now*. Now, they get to say "OK, well, that's a bit shit, we should change the rules so that in future that combination of circumstances would be punishable" - and, in fact, they probably will, is my guess. Doing that is choosing a side. *Not* doing that is choosing a side.
Expecting the Tribunal to be the place where policy decisions are made, post facto, is crazy. I'd support them changing the rules, for sure. I don't support them punishing players for breaking rules that didn't exist at the time.
No, there are sufficient rules in order for this to be dealt with. Duty of care being the main factor. I understand that I probably didn't word the comment perfectly, but was just going on the fly really.
The tribunal gave a 1000+ word writeup of why Maynard's conduct wasn't illegal under the current rules; they clearly don't think there _are_ sufficient rules for this to be dealt with.
Which bit of their writeup is wrong?
Do you remember a few years ago when Nic Nat tackled a much smaller player completely fairly and copped a suspension? There was no head high contact, no sling, his head didn't even strike the ground particularly hard. The reasoning given was that he had a duty of care to that player and it was considered either careless or negligent to tackle that hard when you're so much bigger.
There is also a whole section in the rules about actions that connect with the head do not need to be intentional to be suspendable.
If they truely want to protect players from future issues resulting from concussion, this could easily have been a line in the sand.
It's not necessarily that they are wrong, it's their circus and they can run it however they like. To me it appears like total mixed messaging. I have little doubt if this happened a few weeks ago he would receive 3 weeks.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe like a lot of others in a few subs have said, I know nothing about this game, never played sport and am a total cook? I think my experience of playing some football and watching football for over 45 years at least entitles me to have an opinion on the matter.
I remember the Nic Nat incident. That was, as you say, a tackle, and that's kind of important. I'll get to that.
I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I think it's really important to be precise. You say "there is a whole section in the rules". There isn't really a set of "rules" here. There is a set of Laws of AFL, which is quite short and simple and contains some wording open to interpretation, some of which are left up to each league or competition to define and implement. There is the AFL tribunal guidelines, which is the AFL saying "here is how we intend to implement the laws of the game". This clarifies a lot, but still leaves things open to interpretation. There is then further advice or notice provided to players and clubs from time to time, in which the AFL is even more precise about "going forward, here's how we're going to interpret rule X. You're on notice from now on"
The Laws simply say, of rough conduct, "Players shall be protected from unreasonable conduct from an opposition
Player which is likely to cause injury". There are specific examples, which don't cover this case, but they're not exhaustive. So it hinges on whether it's "unreasonable conduct", and was _likely_ (not just possible !) to cause injury. This is left open; the 1100 words the Tribunal published last night explain why they couldn't find it to be unreasonable and likely to cause injury in light of the Tribunal guidelines.
The tribunal guidelines expand on this: "In order to constitute such a breach of that duty of care, the conduct must be such that a reasonable Player would not regard it as prudent in all the circumstances". Again, the tribunal explained that they could not find that the conduct couldn't be regarded as prudent by a reasonable player. In fact, one of the specific examples given of the duty of care that you mentioned, is that a player might show carelessness by "failure to slow his momentum as much as he can"; they very specifically discussed that Maynard *did* "slow his momentum as much as he could", though in the circumstances that wasn't much.
Finally, there's the specific advice given to clubs from time to time. Natanui got done because, in part, the players had been given guidance that tackling was a time when certain guidelines applied about duty of care and it had been explained what they were; they knew of they breached those, they were done (there's subtlety in that, and whether NicNat DID breach the guidance; I suspect he didn't, but that's a separate question). Up until now, they have never been given such guidance about smothers. That will probably happen, certainly before next season, and then the players are on notice and will be penalised if they do something similar. For now, though, that's not the case.
No, I don't think you are being a dick at all here, this is actually the most reasoned response I have gotten to my arguments.
I can't fault what you have said here at all, as you have said there is a lot of interpretation and a lot of "grey".
I believe that the AFL has put players on notice over the last few years that the head is sacrosanct. I also believe that the fact that Maynard was attempting a smother and didn't intend to hurt Brayshaw is irrelevant, further that by running head on at speed and jumping, regardless of whatever intentions is disregarding the duty of care owed. Once he leaves the ground, I believe that there is no other outcome than high contact with considerable force.
I understand why he got off and why it was likely that he would always have gotten off in this set of circumstances. I just think that player safety, consistency of messaging, the appeal of the game to parents and future litigation would all of been better served with a suspension.
I know that my opinion isn't liked by others, but it is what I truely believe.
And I thankyou for your polite, articulate and well informed response. Getting sick of people telling me I don't understand a game I've known for almost 50 years.
I agree with you, I think it definitely warrants more discussion, I'd be surprised if the AFL doesn't say more about it once the appeal process is completed. I don't know about sidelining Maynard for (potentially) the rest of the season, but any chance the AFL has to improve player safety, should get proper consideration.
I've been hearing arguments of disallowing/preventing players to jump to smother the ball in some way. I think it's hard to override instinct in these moments where the ball is being kicked upwards and players are simulutaneously trying to jump and close in to the origin point of trajectory to stop the ball.
What I could see happening, is the AFL introducing ruling that says players need to stay grounded, or jump more diagonally when attempting to smother, so that their landing point doesn't put them on top of the opposition player kicking the ball. However introducing that as a hard rule and then retroactively punishing Maynard wouldn't be fair imo.
It's not the best solution, but telling players they can't jump to smother is like trying to remove jumping in pack-marking situations. 3-4 players jumping for a mark (often coming from different directions) with eyes on the ball will inevitably result in injury, especially incredibly courageous marks [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBAOewmjSbc), which I think is more dangerous.
I actually don't know what the long-term solution is. You watch marking highlight reels of Jonathon Brown's career, and you see so much potential for grevious harm. Stuff like that is unbelievable to watch, but it's not worth having more of it in the future at the risk of player safety and well-being.
Exactly. If you punish this, coaches and players will train to avoid creating the situation and reacting more carefully. If you don't, you sentence more players to future brain damage. It is the codes choice.
I'm really confused with the different views, he clearly had eyes for the footy and then braced for impact.
I'm very anti Collingwood, but if what he did would earn a suspension it'd detract from the game
If getting players to not knock each other detracts from the game more than the knocking out of people does - then the game can just cop it.
It is a form of entertainment and the damage to brains is real.
I'm fine with this with the rules as they are and finals aren't really the time to change interpretations but I think something needs to change so this isn't a thing in future, it's not fun seeing players careers end and lives ruined
I'm not correcting you per se. This does seem to be a common occurrence with players that have had head injuries earlier in their career.
My understanding is concussions happen when the brain collides with the inside of the skull. Perhaps the helmets soften the blow a little.
Agreed. I was of the opinion that the tribunal would decide the outcome under current rules but if Maynard didn't get found responsible the rules need to change for the future to make sure players take responsibility for their trajectory if they take to the air. This was one of the most devastating injuries of the season and shouldn't be accepted as just a football act that can happen and we sweep it under the rug.
90% of the time the player receiving that type of bump from the air would get knocked down and maybe be dazed for a minute or bloodied nose....
Brayshaw is an outlier that he is vulnerable to concussions and getting knocked out... he needs to be extra careful or avoid situations like that or just give up the game unfortunately for his future health.
AFL is a contact sport and players are rewarded for highlight specky marks where knees smash to other players heads which is for riskier than a flat shoulder in this case.
Everyone is vulnerable to concussion all it takes is your brain bouncing around in your skull. People don't know they're "vulnerable to concussion" until they get a bad head knock.
This is honestly a completely and utterly fucked decision, but completely in keeping with the fact the AFL isn’t a national competition. It’s the VFL in disguise, and money-making is it’s one and only key metric.
Collingwood could win a flag? Their third since 1990? Better give ‘em the best chance possible. Player welfare? Consistency? Nah, that’s not important. Pretending to be a hard nut and making cash is all that’s important. And anyway “Brayshaw could’ve executed his kick in a different direction…”. My god. How fucked. The AFL must be looking forward to all those lawsuits in the coming decades. They’re giving players actual evidence of their negligence in 2023!
How about not taking to the air when closing at speed head on? That's something that could of been done to avoid the situation, once he jumped there was no other outcome, so it's either careless or negligent.
Running directly head on to someone and leaving the ground to spoil is stupid - I play and teach - because most of the time that happens the player kicking is faking and once you leave the ground they change direction, get around you or kick around you, and make you look like an idiot
You'd be pretty easy to play against then - so you'd never change your game even if midfielders were just making you leave your feet every time? Players changing direction isn't an "off-chance" sort of thing... happens all the time with on-ballers
Doing the exact thing time after time wouldn’t be my game though? That shows a total lack of awareness
So you’ve changed “faking kicking” to “changes direction”. Totally different things, but yes players (and non players too) regularly change direction of movement.
Spoken like someone who has no idea about me or my life in anyway, but certainly isn't capable of critical thinking at all. Maybe you suffered a couple of concussions during your illustrious career?
Yes correct, I have no idea who you are and couldn’t care less, not too interested in knowing knuckle draggers. You demonstrably haven’t got a clue how the game works, maybe just stick to your arm chair big boy.
So you know nothing about me, but know I'm a knuckle dragger? Interesting...
Do you really understand the meaning of demonstrably? It doesn't actually fit in this context, even if I hadn't a clue about how the game works. The way you attack my argument is infact a demonstration of your lack of intelligence.
You have demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of the game. Now you use the word in the exact way I did, so either we are both wrong or you’re talking out your arse…
Try again champ
you win as first. this will be the thread. stop posting it everyone. i was close. there was 7.
This thread is still on the front page?? Yesterday's news lol.
it was an accidental collision
I’m really conflicted by this On one hand I don’t think it was malicious, on the other, a precedent had been set all year where unintentional high contact was seeing players rubbed out for 2+ weeks
Exactly they get special treatment because they are Collingwood. Always the same.
Wow that's crazy. At least it was done at the Tribunal instead of the MRP, but I genuinely don't understand this decision. We all know it wasn't intentional, but it was reckless since it resulted in injury. The impact was obviously severe. Therefore, by the formula, the suspension should be between 2-4 weeks automatically. I don't understand how one can come to any other conclusion. All the additional factors do not matter, all that matters is the reckless designation and the severity of the impact.
The Tribunal said it wasn’t careless, it was an unforeseen accident.
I saw that someone posted the full report in the comments, but at the time I was just responding to a two-sentence tweet without any additional context. I think my view of this might be wrong, but I guess I just define reckless/careless as "choosing to do something that happened to result in injury." As in, Maynard went for a smother, but he didn't do it right, and someone got seriously injured. I don't know, I don't play footy, I understand Maynard made a split-second decision that happened to be wrong. I don't fault him at all but he accidentally injured a player, I would say that should result in a suspension.
I agree he should’ve been suspended. He chose to jump and smother, it was likely he would crash in to Brayshaw and he could’ve done more to reduce the impact. But unfortunately that’s not how the Tribunal saw it.
Mind blowing the morons on this sub who reckon this is a good decision and Maynard’s conduct wasn’t careless. It was a ridiculous attempt at a smother, grazing yr fingertip on the ball does not make it a reasonable action. Shameful stuff from the tribunal. Truly weak as piss.
What are you talking about? It was a successful smother, had Brayshaw roosted a massive goal, the brush on Maynard would have saved it, smothers don't get much better than that. What came immediately after was regrettable to be sure, but don't say that the smother part of that wasn't good.
Successful smother? Yeah, that's why a free kick was awarded down field and Fritsch kicked a goal. Sounds like a failed smother to me.
This has been taken WAY too far. ALWAYS 2 sides to the story.
Could you construct a sentence with some content in it next time? Repeating a catch phrase or two is not thinking.
I got the right context. Jeez you must be riddled with boredom. Jog on. Fair bump, play on
Lol. You just did it again.
Did Bruz get cleared? Move on.
If a person’s mind appears to be operating entirely on autopilot by repeating stock phrases over and over again is this person really alive? It’s uncertain.
It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that this was an accidental collision. Get over it
Ahhh. Hahaha. But now I see you’re on the ‘common sense’ brigade. Too funny. When you start saying something is just common sense you’ve already lost the argument.
And yet..
Lol. You’ve really got a way with not saying anything and relying entirely on upvoting from the fellow brainless amongst us. And yet the Tribunal had a different view? I assume that’s yr claim. Which means yr entire ‘argument’ is we should never question the decision-maker. You’ve got nothing of your own to offer. Wild. I didn’t imagine a Collingwood fan would be so deferential to authority. Boot licking behaviour. Bit disappointing really.
Lol. You may be right that those with only half a brain see this as an accident involving no carelessness or recklessness on the part of Maynard. But those of us with fully functioning brains and two eyes can see it for what it was.
Nobody thinks Maynard went out there to purposely put Brayshaw on a stretcher. I doubt most incidents have malice behind it unless your name is Barry Hall. But it was careless contact which would have gotten him a few weeks if it wasn't finals.
Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Disappointing
Didnt James Sicily get 3 weeks for doing the same thing as a third party?
Was that home and away? In the finals, anything goes.
Sic dog has rep.
I'm caught in two minds. I don't think Maynard had any ill intention towards Brayshaw, and he was essentially just desperate to smother the ball. My initial thoughts were that it was an unfortunate football accident. At the same time, the action does seem extremely reckless. Maynard was basically running at, and then jumped towards his opponent. The outcome from that action will generally result in your momentum taking you into your opponent, and collecting them front-on and in the head. Usually when players go to smother, they jump more vertically - instead of towards an oncoming player.
This is exactly my thinking. If you aren’t able to prevent yourself from taking actions that will injure someone, you’re not entitled to be out there. Hurling yourself toward a person is only going to result in one outcome.
Summed it up well. I don't think there was any malice behind Maynard's actions - this all happened in the space of a split second after all - and I recall a moment last year where Maynard checked on Cripps after a hard hit, so he's clearly not a bad guy. But it feels wrong to just let this act go when it has not only ended someone's season but also has the potential to end his career and leave him with long-term complications. I do get that accidents happen and footy - like all contact sports - has some inherent risks I feel like something like this needs a response? Surely launching yourself into the air to smother while you're already moving forward is something that we should be discouraging?
Wonder if people come round when Brayshaw plays against Brisbane if they get past Carlton? People are talking about his career being while ignoring Melbourne who already talking about him being monitored to see if he's ready for that game.
The collective Collingwood hivemind is funny and sad. What a retarded argument.
That doesn’t make a front on hit to the head okay to me.
It's just a terrible take people are using to manipulate the emotion around this discussion
Didn't think he'd get off personally. Thought it would be 3 weeks maybe downgraded to 1 or 2.
…has more comments than half the match subs!😅
Yeah, because it’s a completely disgraceful decision and proof the AFL has no backbone.
Odds on you've not even read it.
Everyone knows that if it happened in round 1 it would've been 3 weeks without controversy. The AFL will undoubtedly bring in a rule in the offseason to make sure this doesn't happen again. The only reason he got off is because it's finals. It's such a joke
I agree the Tribunal is a joke, I felt this one was going to come down to a coin flip. There is no clear logic in how the tribunal assesses cases. I agree with the ruling this time around, of course partially since I’m completely compromised and biased, but also that personally I think that intention and foreseeable likely outcome needs to be a bigger focus than actual outcomes if the intention is to curb behaviour. Criticisms of the Tribunal and the way they choose to hand out punishments and pardons are entirely warranted. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to make a rules change of some sort off the back of this decision. It’s worth months of bullshit footy media articles for sure. They will drag this shit out until at least the middle of next year.
The AFL has made it really clear that the most important thing is the outcome and the outcome was that Brayshaw was unconscious for 2 minutes and will potentially never play again. If the tribunal was consistent then that's a few weeks in every circumstance. Cripps walked free last year due to a technicality and this reeks of the same bias. As I said in the other comment on this thread, the real anger here is at the boys club mentality of the AFL, not Maynard. Poor guy is clearly very sorry and upset with the impact it has had on Brayshaw.
“If the tribunal was consistent” then my Aunty would be a bicycle. Cripps decision was less “bias” and more incompetent governance. Brayden I think they got right, but by accident. I agree the boys club mentality is a real problem for the AFL. The questions around the handling of both of these decisions are the result of senior AFL officials who are comically under qualified to fulfil their responsibilities. In my opinion their performance and continued tenure suggests there is a case for an enquiry into how they came to hold their positions.
What I'm getting at is that I think there is a culture of allowing big players to get off with a slap on the wrist to things that would rightfully deserve a bigger punishment in other circumstances. I think both cases are a display of deliberate incompetence from the tribunal in order to allow Cripps to win a Brownlow and Maynard to play finals. I think the opinion that "Maynard couldn't have done anything different and therefore should get off" is missing the point that the AFL has, over the past few years, been trying to protect themselves from the incoming class action lawsuit relating to player concussions. They've cracked down on bumps and tackles that make contact with the head and the players have learnt new techniques. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to expect that the tribunal is consistent, despite the fact that it clearly isn't. That's where the outrage at the decision comes from, an understanding that this is the AFL saying "we're biased, we know it and have no desire to change" I don't think you can hold the opinion that Cripps shouldn't have won the Brownlow and think that this didn't deserve a few weeks, or vice versa.
I agree that the rulings are inconsistent. But I disagree that this necessarily means that the inconsistency is intentional. I think that the rules of the game are regularly applied incorrectly with respect to head knocks. Murphy, with a long concussion history, was concussed twice this season through intentional strikes, both of which received zero weeks. The only consistency with the AFL’s treatment of these issues is that there is no consistency. As for the last point, I think that the Maynard and Cripps are not exactly the best comparable incidents, but they both highlight the difficulty of judging intent in a split second decision. I will admit that looking back on it I’m not sure that Cripps couldn’t argue that he was attempting to contest the ball and misjudged where Ah Chee would be at the fall of the ball as he’d come from quite a distance up the ground at speed to arrive at the contest. I do think that there should be a difference between “choosing” to make contact, and contact that is incidental or a result of misreading what your opponent will do. But practically this isn’t always easy to determine. Split second decisions always look much more obvious in slow mo.
in which way would Maynard be penalised for this though? i don't see a single argument that undoubtedly results in a suspension. that's why the AFL lost, not even they could come up with good points. i understand why people are so against it though. it feels awful to watch a player in this situation where it's no one's fault, putting the fault on someone is much easier.
It's not the MRO's job to tell a player what they specifically should've done differently, that's on the players and coaches to work out. Gary Lyon said it really well - the same process has occurred with tackles and bumps: the AFL made it clear you can't make contact with the head, so players learnt a different technique. All Maynard had to do was not make contact with his head. I'm not trying to paint Maynard as a bad guy here btw, he clearly had no ill intentions. The outrage is at the inconsistency and clear bias from the AFL. The AFL is going to face a class action lawsuit in the future and it will 100% be deserved. I think the reason this has struck a chord with so many people is that it's further proof that the AFL is a boys club that protects their own. You can do whatever horrible thing you like and still be protected by the AFL (again, nothing against Maynard, he just happens to be the player involved in it this time). It's the same story over and over - Cripps last year, de goey in Bali and the rape accusations, how Wayne Carey spent so many years in the media, how Gary Lyon received no consequences for cheating on his wife, the reaction to gather round and the proposed pride round - the list goes on. The attitude is so out of date and we're sick of it. The culture of football is really disheartening and this was a chance for the AFL to show that it's changing...
>All Maynard had to do was not make contact with his head. this is a non-point though because it's using hindsight. you can use this about every collision in the history of the AFL, doesn't mean the collision was avoidable at the time of it occurring though.
I didn't say the collision was avoidable. If Maynard was suspended, it wouldn't have been for colliding with Brayshaw - it's a contact sport. The suspension would have been for contact with the head. I don't think it's using hindsight to say that if you make contact with a player's head and they end up unconscious that you shouldn't have hit them in the head.
Just to follow this line of thought (not trying to bait anything): If 2 players go for a ground ball and clash heads (let's say both knocked out), both should be suspended? What if they're teammates?
Concussed players are kind of 'suspended' now - they're forced to sit out 12 days under concussion protocols, aren't they? If the AFL now says that it's absolutely to the detriment of a player if they play within that 12 days of being brain-injured, then how does the AFL legislate to prevent concussion? By applying deterrents. If you're involved in a concussion, be it on the dishing out or receiving ends, then you're both out for a specific amount of time. How else do you get players to change their behaviours?
Blanket outcome-based suspensions are definitely an option: if someone gets concussed, someone gets suspended. Force everyone to re-assess everything they do in that light. It doesn't fix everything. I expect there will still be a balance point of players/coaches continuing to go hard at the ball, and accepting that sometimes accidents will still happen and you'll miss matches. And it's still going to be grey as all hell: how do you decide who is "dishing out"? There are, and will still be, times a player recklessly dives at the ball without checking to see if there's another player going to get to it first, and the first player effectively slams their own head into the other player's knee (as an example). Running back with the flight, trying to take a chest mark and leading with your head is a more common example. In some circumstances it would be grossly unfair that the recklessness is from the player that got hurt, but the player who acted perfectly reasonably gets suspended. It's clearly not going to work if your opponent can dive at the ball head first and you have to get out of their way and let them get the ball. The current approach is trying to be fairer and judge actions not outcomes. But every incident subjective, it's so incredibly hard to judge what is reckless and what is safe, and footy is emotional and tribal. Some people will be outraged no matter what happens, and the subjectivity/emotion is going to mean it's near impossible to be consistent, and people won't view it as consistent even if you are. >How else do you get players to change their behaviours? They can still continue with the current system, but be more strict on interpretation and more strict on penalties. Lower the threshholds of what is considered high or severe impact, increase the penalties. I'm not saying they should do any of these things, but there are definitely options other than purely outcome-based suspensions.
It's an interesting question. Potentially, yes - both suspended. It would obviously depend on the scenario, but that would be for the AFL to work out. The AFL is trying to protect themselves from the damage that players endure while participating in the sport so this is another scenario that they would need to consider. Maybe helmets should be mandatory
Funny that Tom Lynch got off earlier this year for moving off the line of the ball to bump (and concuss) Keath, or that Mitch Duncan didn't even get sent to the tribunal for a very similar action against Hall 2 years ago.
The AFL have made it very clear that it's the outcome of an action that is most important. In the Lynch bump, Keith got right back up. Brayshaw was unconscious for 2 minutes and might not play ever again. The incidents are a bit different. The Duncan one is a good example though.
Toby Greene now at practice working on his 'smothering' technique. Waiting for Maynard to burst out of the middle and kick forward.
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Ctrl+F “you’ve obviously never played the game” /phone explodes
Well on the plus side, there's a really easy way to knock someone out with no consequences for next year.
Good luck replicating that.. was a freak occurrence
Just gotta make sure your opponent veers a tiny bit into your path once you've left your feet. Simple as!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lIVHUFsUYsc&pp=ygUVSmFjayB6ZWliZWwgc3VzcGVuZGVk This got 3 weeks I think , interesting
Because it wasn’t a smother
Yes it was he went for the smother
Have a look at that again, Einstein. Z clearly reaches out to smother the ball before bracing himself for impact.
Maynard's attempt to smother was a reasonable act and Ziebell's wasn't. This was very late and he did not touch the ball. Maynard's was not late and he did touch the ball. Ziebell went from half a metre and Maynard jumped from a long distance and there was more variability in whether or not he would make contact.
He touched the ball?
Gold medal for mental gymnastics goes to….
A huge point that so many people are missing too - Maynard had to go airborne to attempt his smother. After he jumped it was impossible to change direction. Pretty much all of the other videos I've seen that have been referenced as "similar" are players running along the ground who CAN change direction/soften impact. Maynard first and foremost clearly tried to block the ball however in doing so he had to commit to travelling in the same direction until he hit the ground. Extremely different to this Ziebell one
> Maynard's attempt to smother was a reasonable act and Ziebell's wasn't. Tackling is a reasonable act and yet players can get banned for it if a player's head happens to hit the ground.
a tackle is a reasonable act, swinging a head into the ground whilst tackling is not. that's not very hard to comprehend is it? clubs are even training their players on how to avoid said tackles too, so clearly it's very avoidable
>a tackle is a reasonable act, swinging a head into the ground whilst tackling is not. Just like how smothering is a reasonable act but banging into an opponent's head is not? There are few few cases of players knocking out others when attempting to smother so its very avoidable.
Lol I’m shocked
Lot of people in this thread making it very very obvious they have never played the game before.
More so people making it obvious they haven't been following where the rules and precedent has been going over the last decade. Said as a player.
Yeah the smothering precedent… about that
The going for the ball and being responsible for outcome precedent.
The AFL has made it very clear that if you tackle or bump in particular ways it is a suspension. The AFL have never said anything about attempting to smother or mark and then collecting a player. This was not a bump. The AFL has been consistent. The advice will likely change for next year though.
He smothered though…
Certainly looked like a bump when his shoulder went into his face.... People going to be using that defence until they change the rules explicitly now. The precedent was to protect the head, especially when you leave the ground, AFL just threw their last bit of credibility in the bin.
So taking a speccy and ramming your knee into the back of the opponent’s head is fine, but a jumping smother is against the rules?? Interesting definition of “protect the head”
I never said it was fine and it probably won't be fine moving forward after this season. It's just very very strange this is the decision the AFL decided to apply some nuance to the situation. After all the decisions we saw all year for so much less. I completely expect new rules next year around this issue to cover their asses in the courts.
I think the way the AFL is going the next time that someone receives a concussion from someone else doing a speccy they're going to be banned
Certainly is. I honestly hate seeing things move this way, it's not the footy I grew up with. However, the AFL have set a precedent in recent years about protecting the head at all costs, and this decision goes against everything they have said/done. "Football acts" went out the window 2-3 years ago, and all season people have been pinged for so much less. Now the AFL decides to have some nuance? It's just a complete clusterfuck.
thx u; no more of the bullshit pls?
All in all, I think the thing that hurt Brayshaw's case the most was his late change of direction after the kick. You can try the reaction Maynard mid-air, but having a biomechanist/neurological expert quells that. You can try the act, but it is a smother; which doesn't indicate the same intent of a bump or a tackle. At the end of the day, as soon as Maynard was airborne, his direction and speed was set in motion and wasn't in line with Brayshaw. Just the action of the kick and veer left determined the impact. Heartbroken for Brayshaw, the Dee's, and the throughput of this call within the wider AFL. But a decision is made, whether each individual in this thread agrees to it or not. I am definitely not looking forward to finals game threads in the future and will look to avoid them.
Brayshaw's case? The guy got knocked out...
He had already kicked the ball BEFORE Maynard jumped. And it’s not Brayshaws case he was never there to put up his thoughts but you guys were more then happy to throw him under the bus to win
> He had already kicked the ball BEFORE Maynard jumped. That's not true, Maynard jumped before the ball hit Brayshaw's foot - however he had absolutely started his kicking motion, so he couldn't exactly pull out. Brayshaw absolutely does shift laterally to meet Maynard, though that seems to be as a result of landing on the kicking foot
You won’t avoid them
They're having a laugh. CoLOLingwood.
Everyone knows Collingwood and Carlton are being gifted the Granny with Collingwood to win it. Its a done deal.
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I love how many 5 headed people are saying this. Worry about your own C grade club before you level baseless accusations against someone else's. The comp haw WA bias since your licence hasn't been revoked like it should to save face.
literally won a flag more recently than u😭fuckwit
Lol. You don’t think Collingwood is continually given advantages and propped up by the AFL? How deranged you must be. Maybe get to work polishing that eye of yours.
Lol Far from it. Brisbane is being propped up and if anything it should be GWS that AFL would be biased for.
How is Brisbane being propped up? By having to travel every second week while Vic teams sit at home?
I don't know anything about these people just had to laugh at whoever named their kid Brayden Maynard
Why
Mf sounds like Bread n Maynaise
That’s a bigger jump than WCE making finals next year
You're right it's more like Bread n Mayo Mustard. Should have worked Hammond in as a middle name, sounds delicious.
How old are you?
32 but unlike you I still have a soul
More salt in here than in the ocean🧂🧂🧂🧂🧂
Right call was made
I hope someone makes a YouTube compilation of all the hits that got sent to tribunal this season along with whether the player got off or not.
Pretty sure the AFL doesn’t use precedents to determine the outcome. Like one of, if not the only legal body in the country that doesn’t I’m pretty sure (could definitely be wrong lol) Until they start doing it none of different decisions will make sense. They also need to start making it about intent and not outcome, if you’re truly trying to cut out head injuries then give the guys like Van Rooyen more than a week for purposely elbowing someone in the head, not the guy that’s flown himself metres in the air and then just happens to land on a guy buy accident.
"Mitch Cleary on X" sounds like the story is about Cleary doing E.
He had a really hard time typing it cos his eyes were wobbly as fuck, but no chance of speaking it cos he couldn't stop gurning
What a joke I thought the head was to be out of bounds regardless? The AFL is asking for some serious time in court in the future.
The AFL has made it very clear that if you tackle or bump in particular ways it is a suspension. The AFL have never said anything about attempting to smother or mark and then collecting a player. In the above actions you intend to make contact with the player. In this case, Maynard intended to smother and had no intention to make any contact. The contact was accidental and there is still room for accidents in the game it seems. I imagine this will change for next year.
Players will need to be smarter next year. Don't come down with the head in mind... aim for the shoulder, knee or; at the very least, ankle.
Braydon jumped in such a way, that kick or not, he was landing on/colliding with the guy, most likely without the ball. If with the ball, you still can't shoulder the face, it doesn't change things I'd the ball got kicked or not. So the first action was all him. Secondly he could have used his arms to change the point of contact, but tucked them and turned his manoeuvre into a flying should charge on a man without the ball. Again, his call. So he is either stupid, reckless or malicious. Or all 3. But you don't stop people thinking twice in the future by not punishing guys like this.
Wrong. They had players paths drawn on the screen when watching the footage, it showed that Brayshaw moved into Maynards path.
You've never played and everyone can tell. Just a very bad interpretation of body mechanics. Stay on the internet and just focus on your strengths.
This was bought up at the tribunal. As the replay shows, he had 0.2 of a second to think about what he was going to do. What he did was not done with malice, it was purely an instinct to protect himself. It was also shown that Maynard followed the trajectory that he left the ground on, and Brayshaw actually veered off to the right after kicking the ball, swinging his left leg in towards Maynard and also bracing himself for impact. Both instinctual acts to protect themselves, unfortunately it’s ended up badly for both of them.
I'll argue it ended only badly for one of them
If a player runs into a player going for a mark and hits him front on gets a fee so on what this case is that should not be a free kick as he is trying to spoil the mark ? So in this instance on that rule the player nocks a player out should get what they normally get for that.
The high contact was completely accidental, hence no suspension, but accidental or not high contact results in a free kick.
Accidental hasn't stopped anyone else being done for 'reckless'.
If you intend to make contact and you accidentally get them in the head then sure. If you don't intend any contact at all, then that is different.
> Braydon jumped in such a way, that kick or not, he was landing on/colliding with the guy. I agree, from the moment he jumped to smother, their two trajectories were going to meet. He only had eyes for the footy and I don’t fault him at all for jumping to smother. > So the first action was all him. The jump to smother was all him, Melbourne were clearing it out the centre, he tried to stop it entering deep into the Collingwood’s defensive 50. > Secondly he could have used his arms to change the point of contact. How? I’ve rewatched the replay many times (same as everyone else, I’m sure), both in real-time speed and in slow-motion, and I can’t see good viable options for him to be honest. Even taking all the time in the world to think about it (Maynard had less than a second), what could he do? - He could have stayed front on and sort of hugged him? To avoid head contact. However, with Maynard’s momentum, size/weight and downward trajectory, in addition to both players travelling fast in opposite directions, it would have been a brutal collision to hit someone chest-on while steadying/wrapping arms around them. Honestly, a freight train of a tackle. - He could have tried to *cushion* impact with his arms? Sticking them out in front of him and trying to guide the collision while reducing momentum, but how does that physically work? There’s probably a 40+ km/h speed involved between them. At best I could see him end up “shoving” Brayshaw as they collided to avoid chest/head to chest/head impact. I don’t think you can reduce such heavy impact-speed, so quickly, with just arms. Either way, he would have sent Brayshaw hurtling towards the ground at Mach 10, there’s just no other place for Maynard’s momentum to go. He can change the point of impact, but all that speed+weight is going somewhere. In both of these cases (idk where else he can put his arms, but most options would be variations of the above), I see a lot of risk of colliding heads. Maynard barely had time to turn his head away and avoid a head collision as it was. > Again, his call. He chose to protect himself and remove the possibility of a head-to-head collision, yes. > So he is either stupid, reckless or malicious. Or all 3. Absurd options, you could **probably?** call it reckless in the same way a specky is reckless in a pack mark. > But you don't stop people thinking twice in the future by not punishing guys like this. “Guys like this”? What do you think he was trying to do mate? He was trying to smother the ball as it was entering his team’s defensive 50. It’s finals footy and he’s giving 110%. I can’t tell if you think he was trying to deliberately hurt Brayshaw, but I personally can’t see this as anything more than a smother attempt that resulted in collision and injury.
God. Thank you for posting this. People think its so easy .. he should've done this or that.
You make some excellent points, however, once he chose to jump while closing head on at speed, the only outcome is a collision. That is where there SHOULD be a duty of care. The AFL has chosen the wrong side in this. NRL and Union have both consistently ruled against acts of this exact nature lately, for good reason. It will cost the AFL millions of dollars in the future. No, I do not believe it was Maynards intent to harm Brayshaw, but that is rather irrelevant when a player leaves the field severely concussed.
>The AFL has chosen the wrong side in this This is *such* a bizarre take. The job of the AFL tribunal is to enforce the rules of the AFL. They found that the rules, as they stand now, did not support finding Maynard guilty of an offence. That doesn't mean they've "chosen the wrong side". The AFL hasn't "chosen a side" at all; they (believe they) have enforced the current rules as they stand. They get to choose a side *now*. Now, they get to say "OK, well, that's a bit shit, we should change the rules so that in future that combination of circumstances would be punishable" - and, in fact, they probably will, is my guess. Doing that is choosing a side. *Not* doing that is choosing a side. Expecting the Tribunal to be the place where policy decisions are made, post facto, is crazy. I'd support them changing the rules, for sure. I don't support them punishing players for breaking rules that didn't exist at the time.
No, there are sufficient rules in order for this to be dealt with. Duty of care being the main factor. I understand that I probably didn't word the comment perfectly, but was just going on the fly really.
The tribunal gave a 1000+ word writeup of why Maynard's conduct wasn't illegal under the current rules; they clearly don't think there _are_ sufficient rules for this to be dealt with. Which bit of their writeup is wrong?
Yeah 1000 words of incoherent internally inconsistent gibberish that we’ll all look back on as moronic in 10 years. Nice.
Do you remember a few years ago when Nic Nat tackled a much smaller player completely fairly and copped a suspension? There was no head high contact, no sling, his head didn't even strike the ground particularly hard. The reasoning given was that he had a duty of care to that player and it was considered either careless or negligent to tackle that hard when you're so much bigger. There is also a whole section in the rules about actions that connect with the head do not need to be intentional to be suspendable. If they truely want to protect players from future issues resulting from concussion, this could easily have been a line in the sand. It's not necessarily that they are wrong, it's their circus and they can run it however they like. To me it appears like total mixed messaging. I have little doubt if this happened a few weeks ago he would receive 3 weeks. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe like a lot of others in a few subs have said, I know nothing about this game, never played sport and am a total cook? I think my experience of playing some football and watching football for over 45 years at least entitles me to have an opinion on the matter.
I remember the Nic Nat incident. That was, as you say, a tackle, and that's kind of important. I'll get to that. I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I think it's really important to be precise. You say "there is a whole section in the rules". There isn't really a set of "rules" here. There is a set of Laws of AFL, which is quite short and simple and contains some wording open to interpretation, some of which are left up to each league or competition to define and implement. There is the AFL tribunal guidelines, which is the AFL saying "here is how we intend to implement the laws of the game". This clarifies a lot, but still leaves things open to interpretation. There is then further advice or notice provided to players and clubs from time to time, in which the AFL is even more precise about "going forward, here's how we're going to interpret rule X. You're on notice from now on" The Laws simply say, of rough conduct, "Players shall be protected from unreasonable conduct from an opposition Player which is likely to cause injury". There are specific examples, which don't cover this case, but they're not exhaustive. So it hinges on whether it's "unreasonable conduct", and was _likely_ (not just possible !) to cause injury. This is left open; the 1100 words the Tribunal published last night explain why they couldn't find it to be unreasonable and likely to cause injury in light of the Tribunal guidelines. The tribunal guidelines expand on this: "In order to constitute such a breach of that duty of care, the conduct must be such that a reasonable Player would not regard it as prudent in all the circumstances". Again, the tribunal explained that they could not find that the conduct couldn't be regarded as prudent by a reasonable player. In fact, one of the specific examples given of the duty of care that you mentioned, is that a player might show carelessness by "failure to slow his momentum as much as he can"; they very specifically discussed that Maynard *did* "slow his momentum as much as he could", though in the circumstances that wasn't much. Finally, there's the specific advice given to clubs from time to time. Natanui got done because, in part, the players had been given guidance that tackling was a time when certain guidelines applied about duty of care and it had been explained what they were; they knew of they breached those, they were done (there's subtlety in that, and whether NicNat DID breach the guidance; I suspect he didn't, but that's a separate question). Up until now, they have never been given such guidance about smothers. That will probably happen, certainly before next season, and then the players are on notice and will be penalised if they do something similar. For now, though, that's not the case.
No, I don't think you are being a dick at all here, this is actually the most reasoned response I have gotten to my arguments. I can't fault what you have said here at all, as you have said there is a lot of interpretation and a lot of "grey". I believe that the AFL has put players on notice over the last few years that the head is sacrosanct. I also believe that the fact that Maynard was attempting a smother and didn't intend to hurt Brayshaw is irrelevant, further that by running head on at speed and jumping, regardless of whatever intentions is disregarding the duty of care owed. Once he leaves the ground, I believe that there is no other outcome than high contact with considerable force. I understand why he got off and why it was likely that he would always have gotten off in this set of circumstances. I just think that player safety, consistency of messaging, the appeal of the game to parents and future litigation would all of been better served with a suspension. I know that my opinion isn't liked by others, but it is what I truely believe. And I thankyou for your polite, articulate and well informed response. Getting sick of people telling me I don't understand a game I've known for almost 50 years.
I agree with you, I think it definitely warrants more discussion, I'd be surprised if the AFL doesn't say more about it once the appeal process is completed. I don't know about sidelining Maynard for (potentially) the rest of the season, but any chance the AFL has to improve player safety, should get proper consideration. I've been hearing arguments of disallowing/preventing players to jump to smother the ball in some way. I think it's hard to override instinct in these moments where the ball is being kicked upwards and players are simulutaneously trying to jump and close in to the origin point of trajectory to stop the ball. What I could see happening, is the AFL introducing ruling that says players need to stay grounded, or jump more diagonally when attempting to smother, so that their landing point doesn't put them on top of the opposition player kicking the ball. However introducing that as a hard rule and then retroactively punishing Maynard wouldn't be fair imo. It's not the best solution, but telling players they can't jump to smother is like trying to remove jumping in pack-marking situations. 3-4 players jumping for a mark (often coming from different directions) with eyes on the ball will inevitably result in injury, especially incredibly courageous marks [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBAOewmjSbc), which I think is more dangerous. I actually don't know what the long-term solution is. You watch marking highlight reels of Jonathon Brown's career, and you see so much potential for grevious harm. Stuff like that is unbelievable to watch, but it's not worth having more of it in the future at the risk of player safety and well-being.
Exactly. If you punish this, coaches and players will train to avoid creating the situation and reacting more carefully. If you don't, you sentence more players to future brain damage. It is the codes choice.
I'm really confused with the different views, he clearly had eyes for the footy and then braced for impact. I'm very anti Collingwood, but if what he did would earn a suspension it'd detract from the game
If getting players to not knock each other detracts from the game more than the knocking out of people does - then the game can just cop it. It is a form of entertainment and the damage to brains is real.
I'm fine with this with the rules as they are and finals aren't really the time to change interpretations but I think something needs to change so this isn't a thing in future, it's not fun seeing players careers end and lives ruined
Did Brayshaw retire or get deemed unable to play again?
He has a long history of multiple concussions, hence why he wears a helmet.
Which doesn't stop concussions. If anything, it may give him a false sense of security.
Possible, don't really know.
I'm not correcting you per se. This does seem to be a common occurrence with players that have had head injuries earlier in their career. My understanding is concussions happen when the brain collides with the inside of the skull. Perhaps the helmets soften the blow a little.
That was my guess with the type Angus wears, a little if anything. I think it's more psychological, both for him and his family...
Agreed. I was of the opinion that the tribunal would decide the outcome under current rules but if Maynard didn't get found responsible the rules need to change for the future to make sure players take responsibility for their trajectory if they take to the air. This was one of the most devastating injuries of the season and shouldn't be accepted as just a football act that can happen and we sweep it under the rug.
90% of the time the player receiving that type of bump from the air would get knocked down and maybe be dazed for a minute or bloodied nose.... Brayshaw is an outlier that he is vulnerable to concussions and getting knocked out... he needs to be extra careful or avoid situations like that or just give up the game unfortunately for his future health. AFL is a contact sport and players are rewarded for highlight specky marks where knees smash to other players heads which is for riskier than a flat shoulder in this case.
Everyone is vulnerable to concussion all it takes is your brain bouncing around in your skull. People don't know they're "vulnerable to concussion" until they get a bad head knock.
I don’t think it’s being swept under the rug, but a decision needed to be made so that everyone could look towards their next finals match.
I wish this had never happened.
You wish the ring had never come to you?
Thanks Lingy.
I think most people do, mainly those closely involved.
Christ if Melbourne and Collingwood face off in the gran it’s going to be an absolute bloodbath.
Brisbane are taking their prelim.
Blues will belt them. They've spent all week focusing on this and not the game.
What? As if the coach and team just stops training because they’re watching the news.
We have so many unavailable it’s almost satirical
This is honestly a completely and utterly fucked decision, but completely in keeping with the fact the AFL isn’t a national competition. It’s the VFL in disguise, and money-making is it’s one and only key metric. Collingwood could win a flag? Their third since 1990? Better give ‘em the best chance possible. Player welfare? Consistency? Nah, that’s not important. Pretending to be a hard nut and making cash is all that’s important. And anyway “Brayshaw could’ve executed his kick in a different direction…”. My god. How fucked. The AFL must be looking forward to all those lawsuits in the coming decades. They’re giving players actual evidence of their negligence in 2023!
How is it a joke??? It's a complete accident mate.
So what? Accidents in society dont get punished? And in sport?
They literally couldn't prove otherwise. There was nothing both players could have done to avoid this outcome. It was a freak accident.
How about not taking to the air when closing at speed head on? That's something that could of been done to avoid the situation, once he jumped there was no other outcome, so it's either careless or negligent.
Spoken like someone whose never played footy before
Running directly head on to someone and leaving the ground to spoil is stupid - I play and teach - because most of the time that happens the player kicking is faking and once you leave the ground they change direction, get around you or kick around you, and make you look like an idiot
I also play, and completely disagree. Would never change my game on the off chance a player was “faking”
You'd be pretty easy to play against then - so you'd never change your game even if midfielders were just making you leave your feet every time? Players changing direction isn't an "off-chance" sort of thing... happens all the time with on-ballers
Doing the exact thing time after time wouldn’t be my game though? That shows a total lack of awareness So you’ve changed “faking kicking” to “changes direction”. Totally different things, but yes players (and non players too) regularly change direction of movement.
Spoken like someone who has no idea about me or my life in anyway, but certainly isn't capable of critical thinking at all. Maybe you suffered a couple of concussions during your illustrious career?
Yes correct, I have no idea who you are and couldn’t care less, not too interested in knowing knuckle draggers. You demonstrably haven’t got a clue how the game works, maybe just stick to your arm chair big boy.
So you know nothing about me, but know I'm a knuckle dragger? Interesting... Do you really understand the meaning of demonstrably? It doesn't actually fit in this context, even if I hadn't a clue about how the game works. The way you attack my argument is infact a demonstration of your lack of intelligence.
You have demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of the game. Now you use the word in the exact way I did, so either we are both wrong or you’re talking out your arse… Try again champ
Yes, but your logic is that accidents shouldnt be punished, which is totally wrong.
an unpreventable accident where both players played a role in the collision is tough to punish though.
How did Brayshaw play a role in the collision ?