Here lies the difficulty.
When TWO players are involved in a high intensity physical struggle how is one player supposed to control the outcome?
Everyone expects the player to be stopped from running away or disposing of the footy.....
No player now is surely deliberately trying to hurt. It largely comes down to luck.
Yeah. A heap of variables. Big and obvious one here is the difference between the tackle-ee. A big tough powerful gnarley old experienced champ v a skinny rookie. It takes years to get a hardened body and skills in how to fall or be tackled. Thats just an observation. Remember a few years back Niknat was done for a tackle that knocked out a small player? The league made up a new ad-hoc policy that players, if you applied the logic, had to tackle on a sliding scale of force according to size and experience of the player they tackle, gentle on a small rookie, go hard on a seasoned inside veteran.
Did the AFL ever issue any explicit directives or policy changes regarding sling tackle sanctions, particularly in regard to if no injury to tackled player? Serious question. If they did, I missed it, it just seems to be a 'more talk and concern around concussion' vibe rather than actual official guidelines.
In principle, I think the above is an improvement. It seems to me, and I think it will change from here on, a sling tackle was still usually just a free kick unless injury occurred. For example Degoey's again on Meek in a practice match. This should be the norm, and would be an improvement, 1 or 2 for any sling tackle, and more for injury, seems reasonable to me. All we ever want is consistency.
Rohan Connelly made an observation that big superstars never seem to be 'test cases'. The Niknat case above goes against that, but I think in general he has a point.