AFL defends its eye-gouging record
By Greg Denham
June 01, 2007
AFL GENERAL manager of football operations Adrian Anderson yesterday defended the league's tribunal system against claims it was lenient in eye-gouging penalties.
"A serious case of eye-gouging would be sent straight to the tribunal and it could suspend a player for as long as it likes," Anderson said.
"The penalty would be up to their discretion, but a player found guilty of serious eye-gouging could be banned for one or two years."
Critics have claimed the AFL's penalties are too soft after the match review panel's decision on Monday to suspend West Coast captain Chris Judd for one match for eye-gouging.
Judd, who fought the charge and was cleared by the tribunal jury on Tuesday, was charged at the lowest end of the scale for obvious high contact - negligent conduct and low impact.
Had Judd had a clean record, he would have been offered a reprimand by the match review panel.
Anderson confirmed that the AFL defined an eye-gouge under the dictionary definition of a poke in the eye, not necessarily a raking of fingers or fingernails across the region of the eyes.
Tribunal chairman John Hassett said in his summary to the jury in the Judd case that the football definition of eye-gouging was an act of poking one's finger in an opponent's eye.
"There is a big difference in the degree of penalties, and no player will escape suspension if found to have intentionally eye-gouged," Anderson said.
He said that under the AFL's level of offences categories, it was possible to eye-gouge in a negligent, or even reckless manner.
"A player may not intend to eye-gouge, but could have taken more care not to," he said. "Poking someone in the eye does not have to be intentional."
Anderson said in the Judd case, impact was deemed low because there was no medical evidence of injury to the right eye of Hawthorn's Campbell Brown.
"In an earlier case with Jeff Farmer, there was medical evidence that there was a scratch on the eye of (Kangaroos player) Daniel Pratt, so impact was assessed as medium," Anderson said.
Fremantle's Farmer was found guilty of eye-gouging Pratt in the pre-season and suspended for six weeks after an unsuccessful challenge.
His action was deemed to be intentional conduct and medium impact.
Yet he could have accepted a four-week penalty which included additional time because of his poor record that carried a 20 per cent loading, and he had a carryover of 96 demerit points.
Last month, Melbourne's Ben Holland was reprimanded for unnecessary and unreasonable contact to the face of Western Bulldogs captain Brad Johnson.
The steepest penalty the match review panel can hand down for eye-gouging is five matches, but if a player has a clean record and accepts an early guilty plea, he would be banned for only three games.
Melbourne Storm NRL coach Craig Bellamy yesterday was bemused by the AFL review panel's punishment for eye-gouging.
"That seems ridiculous, in my environment players can get 12, 15, 18 weeks," Bellamy said. "It's a real dead-set no-no.
"It's either an eye-gouge, or it isn't. If the intent is there, no matter what damage, you should get the book thrown at you."
So strongly did West Coast feel about Judd's innocence, that chief executive Trevor Nisbett said yesterday it would have appealed if the decision had not gone in Judd's favour.
"In this case, even if Chris had a clean sheet, was found guilty of eye-gouging and was handed a reprimand by the match review panel, we would have challenged that on the Tuesday night, and appealed that as well had we not got the appropriate outcome," Nisbett said.
