Zach Merrett call leaves AFL greats fearing for Brownlow Medal
As the AFL looks to rid the game of dangerous tackles, the Tribunal decision on Zach Merrett could end up having a massive consequence.
Rulings from the AFL tribunal on Tuesday night have left many AFL observers fuming, after Essendon skipper Zach Merrett and Collingwood star Taylor Adams were both ruled out of the upcoming ANZAC Day Clash. Both had attempted to have their one-week suspensions for dangerous tackles thrown out at the tribunal, with neither successful.
The rulings sparked a major debate among footy commentators, with Merrett and Adams the latest in a growing list of players this season to unsuccessfully challenge a dangerous tackle charge. The AFL's bid to crack down on concussion has left some coaches, including Alastair Clarkson, worried about the unintended consequences for tackles which wouldn't have been looked at in years gone by.
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Merrett, who had emerged as a Brownlow Medal outsider thanks to Essendon's sensational start to the season, failed to overturn his ban after tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson found had had not acted 'reasonably' in the tackle to prevent a potential head injury. The Bombers star had argued the tackled should have been graded as low impact rather than medium, as well as fighting the rough conduct charge.
He was unsuccessful on both counts, as was Adams, prompting AFL icon Gerard Healy to ponder whether the AFL was losing its way. Despite respecting the league's position on concussion, Healy argued the days of players intentionally trying to injure each other were long gone.
“It’s not a dirty game any more,” Healy told Sportsday. “There’s very few punches thrown. What you can get for two weeks now, the threshold should be, if it’s two weeks or under, you can still win the Brownlow medal.
“I think it would be a disgrace if Merrett lost a Brownlow medal for a tackle gone wrong. That would be crazy.”
Co-host Kane Cornes agreed, claiming it would be 'ridiculous' if Merrett was a leading vote-winner but ineligible through suspension. The AFL changed rules regarding Brownlow eligibility after Carlton's Patrick Cripps was able to remain eligible through a Tribunal technicality in 2022.
“If he loses a Brownlow medal for that, there will be an uproar,” he said. “Do we need to start looking at the Brownlow because even five years ago a player wouldn’t have been suspended for that.”
AFL coaches raise concerns over tackling interpretation
North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson says players and coaches are facing an 'enormous dilemma' as to what constitutes a legal tackle after several players were cited in recent weeks. The four-time premiership coach said before Tuesday's hearing that he would be an interested to see the outcome.
Clarkson believes the AFL, though well-intentioned in trying to reduce head trauma in players, has inadvertently made it much more difficult to lay a successful tackle. He pointed out players are taught to try and pin both arms in a tackle so the ball can't come free, something that risked players being unable to protect their head as they fall to the ground.
“It’s a difficult one for the game, you’ve got these issues around concussion that they obviously need to be very, very mindful of, but we can’t lose sight of the fact of just how difficult our game is,” Clarkson said. “In some of these incidents – the Will Day one from Hawthorn, he was just in the process of tackling a player, and if you’re tackling you’re sometimes going to lose balance.
“The whole idea of tackling is to actually pin their arms so they can’t dispose of the football, because the ball is in their hands. So you want to pin the arms but if you pin their arms, there’s going to be a risk there if they fall to the ground because they lose balance, there’s sometimes going to be head contact with the ground.
“It’s nearly to the point where we’re going to say you can’t even tackle the arms now, because everyone who gets tackled and their arms pinned, they’re at risk of hitting their head on the ground.”
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