farmer judd brown

i've found the workings of the afl tribunal and reporting system to be quite fascinating lately.

first there was the admission from campbell brown that he lied (or fibbed as they put it on the tele.. what exactly is the difference between a fib and a lie and where do they fit in the spectrum of untruths?) to the tribunal when he said that chris judd didn't commit one of the most cowardly acts there is on the footy field in eye gouging. for this moment of honesty he was fined $15,000 by the afl. naturally judd hasn't had any sanction imposed on him. so let's think about this for a moment. by fining brown, the afl is confirming that his original testimony was untrue and, by extension, that chris judd was guilty of eye gouging. yet somehow judd has escaped scot free and brown's ended up with a huge fine. that'll teach brownie for getting his eye in the way of the finger of a clean-cut brownlow medalist.

next came the case on the weekend of jeff farmer's face spontaneously exploding in the game against st kilda. we know it was spontaneous as there was no video footage of baker punching him. the fact that farmer had to be helped off the field with his nose spread across his face and not knowing if he was arthur or martha doesn't prove anything. if there's no video footage then no one can be charged. how ridiculous! it wasn't all that long ago that players were charged and convicted based on verbal evidence alone as there was no video footage to rely on. these days we rely far too heavily on the tele footage. it's a great tool but shouldn't be the only acceptable evidence. i hope baker gets his just desserts but am not holding my breath. i remember only too well when aaron sandilands' jaw spontaneously broke in the immediate vicinity of seaby during a western derby and nothing ended up being done.

postscript:
well, baker got 7 weeks so i guess there is still some chance of justice for victims of gutless off-the-ball thuggery

post postscript:
hmmm.. maybe i was a bit hasty. it's sounding like baker was a tad hard done by so i guess i should retract a bit of my original postscript (but not all..)