04-04-2023, 08:14 AM
(04-03-2023, 09:48 PM)PaulP link Wrote:It's a terrible decision. Imagine if we lose a GF because Cripps questions an unpaid free. The AFL needs to find another way of dealing with this. It's not an infringement where players are deliberately doing illegal things to alter the state of play in their favour. There's no cheating, jumper holding, deliberate OOB etc. You can't have this tiggy touchwood nonsense affecting a result. Hand out heavy fines, suspend the player for the following match etc. But don't change the outcome because some player says boo.
Once upon a time, someone said the same thing about the running through the mark rule.
Jimmy Stynes found out the hard way and cost his team a goal, and ultimately a spot in the grand final.
You reckon he ever made that mistake again?
....and thats the point.
Make a big statement about it and make it mean something and players will start to take notice.
You could pay 10 of them in nothing parts of the ground, in a game that was a blowout and nobody would learn anything. Pay 1 like that and everybody takes notice.
Yes it sucks. Thankfully it went our way. It will be less likely to occur in the future, because players will learn from it and you have that decision to thank for it.
Think back to the pre-season game last year when we played the Dees. Umpires had just been spruiking the dissent rule in the off-season. From memory, we learned pretty quick, but the Dees did not. I think there was something like 8 50m penalties for backchat and dissent. Dees learned their lesson eventually.
...and thats the thing with these rules as well. You go hard early and set a tone...then ease off when the games really matter and finals. Happens with all rules.