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AFL and Concussion - Angus Brayshaw retirement
- Thread starter tigersnake
- Start date
Of course they run at the player to shorten the distance and reduce the time the ball has to go over their hands. And to rush the disposal.
It's rare to have it happen where it did. Suspending Maynard would have little influence over poreventing future concussions IMO.
Wrong, if the AFL were fair dinkum on penalties he either learns not to do it or he sits out games so he can’t damage brains anyway
The ONLY way that has shown to be effective in any sport to remove certain actions is to legislate against them via suspension. Its literally the only action available to the sports governing bodies.
You see it in all sports, head high hits in Rugby. You see them way way less than you ever used to, why? Because of the excessive suspensions and sending offs that it leads to (ie. it impacts negatively on you as a player and as a team).
Do I think if Maynard had been suspended it would change that action? Well as you've indicated that specific action doesn't happen on a footy field, but if he was suspended, yes I think it second guesses anyone else trying it.
The smother action is a football action, but is that smother action taught as a fly through the air at speed by your shoulder with no thought of where you would land? No way someone would train that action into him. It was a brainfade whilst "trying" to (and I say this very loosely) attempt a football action. AS I say, most smothers are either players diving low across the body to catch the ball as it comes off the boot, or high, but straight up in the air with arms outstretched. Rarely (and I say very rarely as I don't remember seeing an incident like Maynards before) do people fly through the air at speed, shoulder 1st to try and smother a ball.
I think it would. That was a very low % play by Maynard. He was a long way from the play to be able to smother, hence why he accelerated and jumped the way he did. We should be training (and legislating) against making those very low % plays.
Tell me this, if that same incident occurred again, how many times do you think a successful smother would be enacted?
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Watch the video. You can slow it down by moving the slide. The side-on displays perfectly that Maynard was doing nothing more than attemtping a smother. Hard to argue otherwise, he barely misses the ball. He truns his shoulder at the very last moment to protect himself.
Cannonball and leading with shoulder? Please, typical Carter hyperbole.
This was clearly a football action IMO. The result was very unfortunate.
Watch the side-on. Maynard did nothing wrong with his choice IMO. It was an instant reaction. How far was he off fromn touching the ball? And you need to also consider that rushing the disposal is also part of the reason for running at the player.
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Watch the video. You can slow it down by moving the slide. The side-on displays perfectly that Maynard was doing nothing more than attemtping a smother. Hard to argue otherwise, he barely misses the ball. He truns his shoulder at the very last moment to protect himself.
Cannonball and leading with shoulder? Please, typical Carter hyperbole.
This was clearly a football action IMO. The result was very unfortunate.
You are missing the point.
Why is this an action that is rarely seen on the football field? Is it because no-one else has thought of it, or because it was such a low % play that players don't do it.
The ONLY way Maynard got close to the ball was to accelerate into the contest. We've seen with bumping actions (which is also a legitimate footballing action) that we are trying to legislate out acceleration into a collision because of the increased risk of a head high hit, so why are you against doing the same with a smother. It seems a ridiculous cliff to be hanging yourself on to be honest.
Acceleration into a contest without staying low, is a massive red flag in our game and the game has clearly been trying to stamp it out, but if its a smother its ok????
The assassination of Maynard is over the top IMO. Those exact circumstances do not happen very often. Maynard committed to coming at Brayshaw. To reduce the time Brayshaw had. He waits until Brayshaw gets into the kikcing action before deciding to smother. He jumps foprward to reduce the time the ball has to clear him. He has his hands up. A fraction before he contacts Brayshaw he braces by turning side-on. Brayshaw contributed to the contact by veering into his path. It was a terrible outcome for Brayshaw. Doubt we see similar again, regardless of Maynard being suspended or not.
So judiciaries across the world should be lenient if the crime “doesn’t happen often”
Keep going, this is getting better and better
I actually don't think he did anything wrong in the circumstances.
But you keep the hyperbole going - "judiciaries across the world"
Brayshaw doesn't "veer" into his path. Its a natural reaction from overbalancing as you kick, you kick the way he does, you will inadvertently tilt towards your right, its physics / biology, not something he did that shouldn't have been anticipated (and I'm disappointed that Melbourne doctors didn't use physics / biology to refute this argument). This argument was as close to victim blaming as you'll get in our sport and IMO is the most ridiculous part of this.
I think you actually argue against your point here, lets break it down.
1 - Maynard accelerates towards the contest - we agree with that right
2 - Maynard thinks lets spoil so he jumps forward with arms out
3 - At this point realises that he can't spoil and therefore turns his body to protect himself
4 - Maynard hits Brayshaw
You think he's ok to make the call at point 2 to spoil, my view is 2 fold.
1 - The likelihood to spoil it was very low, the fact that you say he got close doesn't matter. The facts are he didn't spoil it and was unlikely to be able to. The only reason he got close was the acceleration into it (which as I've said we are trying to outlaw from bumps so why shouldn't we also be regarding the same for this action)
2 - Due to the speed that he was going to accelerate into the contest at, the likelihood of that momentum taking him into Brayshaw was accelerated compared to a normal spoiling action when the angle that you thrust forward at is much more upright
Points 3 and 4 above are outcomes of the action he committed to at 2 - which is what the discussion should have been.
The reason why we don't see this action often in football is described in my outcome 1 of 2 above. The chance of spoiling the ball was very low. To accelerate into the contest at that point, takes you out of the contest and is reckless from both a H&S perspective of the other player, but also reckless from a team defence perspective as you take yourself completely out of the play. Coral or tackle and you can still impact the player AND impact any secondary play (lets say Brayshaw kicks forward towards a marking contest, ball is contested and brought to ground, Brayshaw still has forward momentum to move towards that play and impact the secondary contest, Maynard wouldn't. There are plenty of times in the game that players COULD impact a potential smother attempt like Maynard did but very few actually decide to impact that contest in that way.
The whole point of suspension to drive behaviour is because it works. We don't want that action in the game, the likelihood of impacting the other player (who isn't expecting the collision because only an idiot would make that play instead of the higher % play) means they are in a vulnerable position. We've heard this statement used so many times before, including when we have heard the term "potential to cause serious injury" yet when there IS a player in a vulnerable position AND that player DOES get a serious injury, we wanted to ignore it!!!
I just don't really understand the point you are trying to drive.
Look at it from a legal angle too. As I mentioned earlier, sport will cease to exist as a sport if we legislate all contact our of it. The courts of law will understand this and accept that some risk must be taken by the player that engages in that sport. Don't think of concussion by itself, but what about serious knee injuries, or injuries like LAblett had with his hip. Do they get to sue too? You can't have it for 1 type of injury and not others. The point being that players take risks with their bodies when they choose to play or work in a specific field, BUT the employee must show that they are working towards mitigating injuries to their employees, and taking random acts of recklessness out of the game (like I see Maynards as) is a push towards this, much like it will be for reducing bumps etc (they are regarded as reckless behaviour right).
Someone else mentioned soccer, and the impact that heading a ball has. For adult sport there hasn't been any indication that they will take the action out of the sport (and I agree with that) but what have they done. They have legislated to reduce its impacts in young people by having no heading involved in games I think up to the age of 14. They have moved on from the leather balls that I grew up playing with, that absorbed water and bloody hurt when you head them. The balls these days are made with much lighter synthetic material in order to reduce weight and therefore impact on the head when the ball is headed. This is risk mitigation, and the way that all sports are now looking at incidents in their games that specifically impact the head. Take cricket for example again, its not legal to face up to a fast bowler without a helmet. Some nations roll that out for all bowlers (England do this which is why even to spinners they never take their helmets off, India has a different rule against spin), but against the most dangerous action (the pace bowler), helmets have to be worn or you don't play.
Actions like Maynard did are low % and add very little to our game, and I have no problem with them being stamped out. Its all about choosing the right risk mitigation actions rather than having blanket rules across everything.
Jazzy, it's no more a pile-on to suggest Maynard should have been suspended than it was to say Cripps should have been when he knocked out that Brisbane Bear. I'm certainly not blaming Maynard for Brayshaw's overall plight, but he didn't help. And the AFL letting him and Cripps off shows they are not serious about protecting the head; it seems a very obvious and easy to follow dictum: jump into someone's head and you go. Instead they give frees to the Crumples of the world when they headbutt a stationary player in the stomach.
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Waz, we were taught "never put your head where your arse will fit". Today's players are rewarded for putting their head in danger. The first level of protection is self-protection. Very hard to protect people while simultaneously incentivising them not to protect themselves
Probably doesn’t help when players like Selwood are lauded for their “courage”.
If they had any brains (oxymoron) commentators would have called out his actions years ago. Instead he’s held up as a brave and courageous player who young kids then try to emulate.
If it was called out for cheating and the propensity to self inflict head trauma young players might have taken note. Also junior coaches should have and instructed their young players to eradicate it out of the game.
It wouldn’t have completely taken concussions out, but it probably would have reduced the likelihood.
