NRL has last laugh as AFL runs scared
By Rebecca Wilson | February 13, 2009 12:00am
THE AFL's spineless attitude to player behaviour resurfaced in the ugliest possible way this week. Given an opportunity to show it finally means business about on-field violence, the AFL ran and hid. This season will start as last season finished - with a weak football administration refusing to admit that the lunatics are running the asylum.
Carlton's Setanta O'hAilpin punched Cameron Cloke and kicked him while he lay prostrate on the ground.
The Irish import is not even from an opposition team to Cloke (and that is no excuse anyway). He is his teammate. The pair were taking part in a pre-season trial match when O'hAilpin had his brain snap.
For what has to be one of the worst on-field incidents ever seen in the AFL, the Irishman received just a four-week suspension to be served in the pre-season. O'hAilpin will be unleashed on his opponents by round one of the competition.
The AFL tribunal has basically allowed one of the worst acts of thuggery in the game's history to go unpunished in any tangible way.
This is a natural progression for a football organisation that puts player rights above the need for appropriate behaviour from its members. Its boss, former player Andrew Demetriou, continually allows the collective power of the players' body to dictate terms.
What is needed is a completely independent tribunal not afraid of coming down heavily on players who commit grave acts on a football field. O'hAilpin has a reputation for hotheadedness and should have had his contract ripped up in his face for what looked like a criminal act.
The National Rugby League and the Australian Rugby Union have every right to be sitting back this week with large smiles on their faces. The NRL and the ARU are the ones the AFL loves to look down upon with great glee as the codes played by so-called "thugs".
The blazer wearers in Australian rules are snobs about their sport - some of them don't believe thuggery and violence exist in any real form in their more athletic form of football. Their tribunal is set up to pander to the player. If he pleads guilty to hitting and kicking a teammate, he has a week taken off his suspension.
Even the most irresponsible parent would not see O'hAilpin's admission as an excuse to reduce punishment. The Irishman must have been sniggering when a five-week suspension was reduced to four just because he admitted to kicking a bloke while he was down.
He might have phoned the Swans' Barry Hall and had a good old laugh at a tribunal system that allows blokes who king-hit on the footy field to play again within a month or two.
Images of Hall punching the West Coast's Brent Staker were sent around the world. So, too, were those of O'hAilpin kicking Cloke. The pair of them have brought their code into disrepute in the worst possible way, yet faced a judgment system apparently not equipped to deal with such an appalling act of violence.
Rugby league players may make a habit of committing crimes in nightclubs. They have their contracts ripped up on the spot. Ben Cousins was charged with bringing the game into disrepute for his off-field misdemeanours. The AFL was quick to jump all over Cousins and pushed him, in no uncertain terms, away from the game.
But O'hAilpin committed his sins on a football field - in full view of the public. He did so with an umpire present who would have expected the match to be played within the spirit and rules of the game.
Without hesitating, Demetriou should have dealt with the O'hAilpin matter personally and brutally. He could have had the matter directed to him and told the bloke that his sport didn't need players like him to ruin the code's reputation.
If O'hAilpin had committed similar assaults off the field, he may have been arrested, charged and faced jail sentences.
Remarkably, we will have the chance to see him run around in his team colours in time for the start of the season. That is a shameful result for the public and for his sport.
Little thought went into the month-long suspension of a player who has committed one of the most terrible on-field acts in any code for a long time. The fact that he was kicking a teammate makes it all the more galling for fans who tend to relish the Australian notions of fair play and mateship.
Shame on Setanta O'hAilpin. But more shame on Demetriou and co. who have obviously decided to start the year as they ended it - with a whimper.
