AFL 2018
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Talk of criminal charges with the Gaff incident.
Grievous bodily harm?
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@barbarian said in AFL 2018:
Would be an interesting legal discussion, not sure what the precedent is.
Surely the Freo player wouldn't want to take it to court, though?
He'll get at least 8 weeks though.
dangerous precedent taking it to court. Where do you stop? Would it make anything worth a suspension liable to criminal charges?
It looks like a complete brain explosion. Even the way the punch is thrown is weird, he's just snapped in retaliation to the usual AFL shoulder-barge bullshit, and hit him flush. I seriously think he meant to hit him, but not there, and not that hard.
Deserves a fair suspension. Cameron got 5 weeks for what he did to Andrews, but at least the ball was somewhere close to them. That fact alone makes this worse in my eyes. I could stomach 6 weeks.
Pretty sure Gaff was looking for a move to Victoria for next season, this might affect his value a little.
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@mariner4life said in AFL 2018:
dangerous precedent taking it to court. Where do you stop? Would it make anything worth a suspension liable to criminal charges?
Well I suppose there has to be a line somewhere - you couldn't beat someone to death on a footy field and expect to avoid criminal sanction.
I generally think the 'well if you did that in the street you'd be locked up' argument is flawed, because that goes for a lot of things that are legal in AFL/footy as well. You couldn't just tackle someone in the street, either.
I think unprovoked, aggressive acts that are well outside the rules of the game puts you in a risky position if the victim is litigious. I don't think it will happen here though.
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@barbarian pretty sure its happened at local level? Actually yes, there was a case up here in AFL where a dude got whacked a bit like this.
I guess there is this very archaic part of me that still thinks that shit like this happens on football fields, and it is part of the game (not a good part. But a part none the less). An outcome of the huge clean up to our football codes is young guys just have no concept this is coming. Probably in the 90s if you were going to go about giving someone some shit, you were prepared for a whack to come back, and could protect yourself. These days they are so rare people have no idea they are coming, and bang! broken jaw.
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I'm a bit torn. On one hand, a punch is a punch. It's outside the rules of the game and therefore potentially so could be any response by the victim ie legal action, given the seriousness of the injury. But the other part of me says that while it's a shitty thing to do, it's in the heat of battle.
Bubbling away as well, you have the whole one punch thing in day to day life.
I do think this is where sport needs to draw a line in the sand and punish this kind of thing severely, while keeping it out of the court system. If the AFL doesn't take serious action againt Gaff and then one day some other plonker does a similar thing but it cause soemthing like a brain bleed or worse, then they may look back at this punch as a watershed moment.
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I'm all for Gaff being punished, but the AFL is notoriously lenient when it comes to suspensions in comparison to other rugby so I doubt he'll do much other than sit out the remainder of the year.
The young fella needs to learn to take a punch.
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@barbarian said in AFL 2018:
Would be an interesting legal discussion, not sure what the precedent is.
Surely the Freo player wouldn't want to take it to court, though?
He'll get at least 8 weeks though.
Apparently Leigh Matthews was charged back in the day
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@barbarian said in AFL 2018:
Would be an interesting legal discussion, not sure what the precedent is.
Surely the Freo player wouldn't want to take it to court, though?
He'll get at least 8 weeks though.
Apparently Leigh Matthews was charged back in the day
Matthews was the last AFL player to face criminal charges over an on-field matter when he was charged with grievous bodily harm for punching Geelong’s Neville Bruns in 1985.
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@booboo The big difference is Matthews effort was clearly intentional. Gaff looked like he's gone the swinging arm which is endemic in the game and he's hit him flush on the jaw by accident.
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@antipodean said in AFL 2018:
@booboo The big difference is Matthews effort was clearly intentional. Gaff looked like he's gone the swinging arm which is endemic in the game and he's hit him flush on the jaw by accident.
i actually agree with this view of it. Reading AFL forums, that puts us in a minority position. Freo fans want him hanged for the single worst thing ever done an AFL field, ever.
Most just call it a dog act.
Serious AFL fans are a bit different.
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Listening to Bruns this morning on the radio was really interesting. Not someone who has spoken much of any to the media since he retired years ago. You could tell that the incident impacted his life and his view of footy even now.
Has tried to reach out to Matthews but not reciprocated. So it sounds as if Matthews is still impacted by it. He was a ‘hard’ player but known for his boofhead play as well. Because he was so damn good people were willing to see beyond it.
The police investigation/involvement I think was driven by the lack of action and time taken by the VFL. There was public outrage and police took it upon themselves to act. That’s not what will happen here because tonight we will learn Gaff’s fate, but even after the suspension there will be continual discussion and debate over community standards and actions on a footy field.
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I vote keep the cops away. As a society we can't even work out simple issues let alone an influx of spurious assault charges every weekend of un televised amateur sport assault cases.
Big ban and universal condemnation usually gets the message across. Then consistency, i.e not pandering to a star of the sport e.g. NRL
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I thought it would be longer, but if Eagles do make it to GF he will miss and also the first game of next season.
Just heard that there will be a meeting between the two players organised by the Brayshaw family.
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Watching the Dees VS Swans. Horrible but unsurprising stat for the Dees was that they were 0-6 VS top 9 sides and 12-1 VS the rest. And after a poor start VS the Swans (8th place?) they had a good run and have since gone into halftime behind by 14. Ruh roh.
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Here come the Dees....but run out of time.
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Oh yes, I'm the great, pretender
Ooo oo woo oo
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Actually Melbourne might be fucked with road games v west coast and GWS to come, while Geelong have freo and the suns.
‘He will be mortally wounded for the rest of his life’
