Carlton has successfully downgraded defender Jordan Boyd’s one-match ban at the AFL Tribunal.
In a marathon four-hour hearing, the AFL claimed the Blues were “victim-blaming” as they spent their entire appeal arguing Richmond’s Rhyan Mansell had ducked his head and played for a free kick.
Richmond great Jack Riewoldt sarcastically asked in response to Fox Footy’s coverage of the case: “when is the finding on how many weeks Mansell is getting expected to be handed down? He’s the one facing the tribunal right?”
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But while the Tribunal agreed Boyd had elected to bump – disagreeing with the thrust of Carlton’s case against Mansell – they felt Boyd slowed down enough to reduce the impact from medium to low, resulting in a fine rather than a suspension.
The incident was graded as careless conduct, medium impact and high contact.
The Blues argued the elements of the reportable offence are not present, as the incident requires a bump and that Boyd didn’t bump, and he didn’t make contact to an opponent, rather that Mansell caused the contact by ducking.
They also argued the incident was not careless, and that the actual impact is below low, and thus does not need to be elevated from low to medium by the deeming provision.
Richmond’s medical report said Mansell was assessed after the incident and “he was fine”.
The Blues wanted to rely upon examples of a Lachie Hunter bump on Connor Rozee, which is included in the AFL rules as a useable example, and a Round 5 incident which the AFL permitted to be included.
Boyd did not give evidence.
Sam Bird for the AFL argued “what you see is Rhyan Mansell tracking the ball, he has his head over the ball, Mansell bends down to the pick up the ball and as he does, Boyd approaches front-on and makes forceful contact with Mansell’s head”.
Bird told the Tribunal to consider whether it was reasonable for Boyd to contest the ball as he did, given Mansell was in a vulnerable position, as the Blue was “three or four steps” away when Mansell got the ball and could have tackled.
“Boyd was always going to be second to the ball and should’ve reasonably considered he was never going to gain possession of the ball,” Bird said.
“We see Boyd jogging initially and then accelerating to the point of contact.”
Bird also argued even if Mansell hadn’t put his head down, contact still would’ve been made with Mansell’s face because of how Boyd was approaching the contest – and that he lowered his head to protect his face from the oncoming contact while in a vulnerable position.
The impact grading of medium was appropriate because this was “an inherently dangerous action” because of the potential to cause serious injury such as “a broken jaw or a neck injury” according to the AFL.
Peter O’Farrell for Carlton asked the Tribunal to reject hypotheticals on what could have happened, and emphasised that Boyd looked up and saw Mansell coming before lowering his head.
“This rule is designed to protect the player with their head over the ball, a blinded player … not an incident where the player saw an oncoming player and chose to duck his head into the oncoming player,” O’Farrell said.
The Blues compared the Boyd incident with the Hunter/Rozee forceful front-on bump where the Power player was in clear distress, along with Matt Crouch on Jack Carroll from Round 5, where Carroll did not see Crouch before the collision and was left in obvious distress.
“There wasn’t anything that Carroll did to contribute to this incident occurring,” O’Farrell said.
In contrast they argued Mansell “initiated contact”, saying “he keeps lowering his head down for some unknown reason”.
The Blues argued Boyd was running into a “dangerous space for Mansell to utilise himself or handball to Kamdyn McIntosh”, not at Mansell, as he approached.
They also argued Mansell appealed for a free kick after the incident rather than being in distress.
O’Farrell suggested Mansell reacted “in embarrassment” because he was playing for a free kick and was mocked by Elijah Hollands in the aftermath.
“In the modern game, a player should not be held to a duty of care that anticipates … a player would consciously choose to make contact with an oncoming player by ducking his head,” O’Farrell said.
“It’s no longer acceptable to say this was clever … we’d hope for the good of the game and the health of future generations of players, that actions like this are not adopted by players into the future.”
The Blues conceded there was an option open to Boyd to tackle instead.
AFL Tribunal chair Renee Enbom questioned how late Boyd was still running at Mansell, with the Blues conceding they were just a step apart when he was still moving at pace.
“It’s close to a submission of victim-blaming,” Sam Bird for the AFL said in response to the Blues’ case.
O’Farrell responded: “We make no allegations about the character of the player involved Mansell”, saying they could have theoretically argued a counter-point about Mansell staging but chose not to.
TRIBUNAL REASONS
We find Boyd did commit the reportable offence with which he’s charged.
Vision clearly captures Boyd making contact to Mansell from front on when Mansell had his head over the ball.
Such contact is deemed to be careless unless one of the stated circumstances apply. We do not find that either of the circumstances apply.
Boyd was not contesting the ball. He was running at Mansell to bump him in an effort to stop him from disposing of the ball. This is apparent from a careful review of the vision.
Boyd did not give evidence before the Tribunal.
Second, we do not consider that the contact was caused by circumstances outside the control of Boyd, which could not reasonably be foreseen.
Mr Boyd made a decision to run at speed at Mansell to try and bump him. Mansell had possession of the ball and it was reasonably foreseeable that he may change direction or position in a range of different ways shortly before contact, including crouching down as Mansell did.
This is one reason why choosing to bump rather than tackle an opponent is risky.
Boyd submitted that Mansell deliberately ducked to get a free quick kick. We do not make that finding on the evidence before us.
We now move to impact. The guidelines state that any careless, forceful front on contact which was high and that has the potential to cause injury will usually be graded at a minimum as medium impact, even though the extent of the actual physical impact may be low.
If not for Boyd taking several steps immediately before contact to reduce the impact, we would have upheld the medium grading.
Vision captures the following: Boyd decelerated as he realised that high contact was about to be made, he significantly reduced the actual impact to Mansell. Boyd moved his arms in a position to try to cradle Mansell. Boyd used his hands to try to stop Mansell from falling backwards. These actions helped to minimise the actual impact of the contact, which was low.
Importantly, they also helped to reduce the potential for injury. For these reasons, we find the impact to be low.