TSL TRIBUNAL ACTION PLAN
GLENORCHY coach Paul Kennedy has called on the TSL to take a stance and alter tribunal guidelines which would see penalties based on actions, not outcomes.
It comes after Clarence star Jake Cox was suspended for just one match following an early guilty plea for striking Pie Harrison Gunther last weekend in what Kennedy deemed was a similar punch to that of West Coast’s Andrew Gaff, which broke Fremantle youngster Andrew Brayshaw’s jaw.
Because of the severity of Brayshaw’s injuries, Gaff was hit with an eight-match ban, ruling him out for the remainder of the 2018 AFL season.
Kennedy believes one solution is to differentiate between a football and non-football act on the field, and feels the State League does not need to follow the AFL system.
“What it comes down to more so is not the action but the outcome, that’s really just luck isn’t it,” Kennedy said.
“You punch someone in the face, you could kill them or they could just laugh at you, depending on who the person is, how the punch connects.
“I just don’t think that is a good way to do it.
“Under the system it [the Cox penalty] is right, but I don’t think we should be dancing the same tune as AFL headquarters just for the sake of it. There is a pretty strong body of evidence that AFL headquarters get a lot of things wrong, they dance with two left feet, they flounder about the room and then they make rule change after rule change to try and make up for the rule change they made in the first place.
“I would prefer us as a league to sit down and come up with some common sense around these things in the offseason, where everybody knows what the repercussions are and we can go into the season with a clear stand.
“If your intention was to punch someone and hurt someone, there should be a repercussion for that.”
The Pies will square off against Launceston in this weekend’s final round, with hosting rights for the qualifying final on the line.
The Blues will have the services of Jobi Harper after he was offered a low-level repri- mand for attempting to kick Tiger Hugh Johnson — an incident that drew criticism from both Kennedy and Lauderdale coach Darren Winter.
“You can’t have players being punched in the face off the ball and players being kicked and the only consequence being a one-week suspension or a reprimand,” Kennedy said.
Winter added: “They have made the decision but to me it didn’t look good, it wasn’t a good look for the game.”