MRP assessment: part 2

In the first part of AussieRulesBlog’s look at Match Review Panel assessments, we focused on the two tables where relevant factors are weighted and result in activation points and demerit points being decided.

 

Crucial to the first part of that assessment is the MRP’s view on the conduct which a player has engaged in. This conduct is graded, in ascending severity, Negligent, Reckless or Intentional.

 

To try to gain some insight into how the MRP assesses players’ conduct, let’s look at the definitions provided for these conduct assessments in the AFL Tribunal Booklet 2010.

Negligence

A player negligently commits a reportable offence if the relevant conduct constitutes a breach of the duty of care owed by the player to all other players. Each player owes a duty of care to all other players to not engage in conduct which will constitute a reportable offence being committed against that other player. In order to constitute such a breach of that duty of care, the conduct must be such that a reasonable player would not regard it as prudent in all the circumstances. Negligence is constituted by a person’s breach of duty to take reasonable care to avoid acts which can be reasonably foreseen to result in a reportable offence. While Australian Football is a contact sport, players owe a duty of care to others not to cause and to avoid illegal contact.

An extra onus applies to protect players from serious neck injuries when they have their head down over the ball and to protect players from bumps to the head. Bumping or making forceful contact to an opponent from front-on when that opponent has his head down over the ball, unless intentional or reckless, will be deemed to be negligent, unless:

a.	the player was contesting the ball and did not have a realistic alternative way to contest the ball; or
b.	the bump or forceful contact was caused by circumstances outside the control of the player which could not reasonably be foreseen.

The definition of negligent also contains specific wording relating to bumps to the head (see rough conduct section starting page 12).

An example of negligent contact may be where a player collides with another player who has taken a mark and where contact occurs just after the mark has been taken. The offending player has a duty of care to avoid any contact which would constitute a reportable offence by slowing his momentum as much as he reasonably can and a failure to do so constitutes negligent.

So, pretty much anything then is negligent!

Recklessness

A player recklessly commits a reportable offence if he engages in conduct that he realises or that a reasonable player would realise may result in the reportable offence being committed but nevertheless proceeds with that conduct not caring whether or not that conduct will result in the commission of the reportable offence. The reckless commission of a reportable offence does not require any wish that the reportable offence be committed.

 

This does not require proof that the player turned his mind to the risk.

A player who without looking swings his arm backwards in a pack and strikes an opposing player in the face may be said not to have intended to strike his opponent but his conduct was reckless because it can be inferred from his action that he realised that his arm might make contact or alternatively a reasonable player in his position would have realised that  such contact might be made. The guideline relating to inferring a state of mind with respect to intentional offences has application to determining if the player acted recklessly. However, even if it is not established that the player realised the risk, he will have acted recklessly if a reasonable player in his position would have realised the risk.

 

In the example given under negligent above, if a player collides with another player who has marked the ball, in circumstances where there is some further time after the mark has been taken, and where he blindly continued on, to contact the player taking the mark, then the act would best be described as reckless.

 

What’s really interesting here is the section we bolded, and it’s most pertinent to the Campbell Brown–Callan Ward incident earlier in 2011.

 

Intentional

A player intentionally commits a reportable offence if the player engages in the conduct constituting the reportable offence with the intention of committing that offence. An intention is a state of mind. Intention may be formed on the spur of the moment. The issue is whether it existed at the time at which the player engaged in the conduct.

 

For example, where a player delivers a blow to an opponent with the intention of striking him. Whether or not a player intentionally commits a reportable offence depends upon the state of mind of the player when he does the act with which he is charged. What the player did is often the best evidence of the purpose he had in mind. In some cases, the evidence that the act provides may be so strong as to compel an inference of what his intent was, no matter what he may say about it afterwards. If the immediate consequence of an act is obvious and inevitable, the deliberate doing of the act carries with it evidence of an intention to produce the consequence. Thus it could not realistically be concluded that a player who behind the play and whilst facing his opponent punched him to the face did not intend to
strike him. The state of a player’s mind is an objective fact and has to be proved in the same way as other objective facts. The whole of the relevant evidence has to be considered. When considering the issue the Tribunal Jury must weigh the evidence of the player as to what his intentions were along with whatever inference as to his intentions can be drawn from his conduct or other relevant facts. The player may or may not be believed by the Tribunal Jury. Notwithstanding what the player says, the Tribunal Jury may be able to conclude from the whole of the evidence that he intentionally committed the act constituting the reportable offence.

 

Video examples of respective incidents which are negligent, reckless or intentional, are available. The Laws provide for various categories of permitted contact which shall not constitute a reportable offence.  Such contact includes legally using a hip, shoulder, chest, arms or open arms, providing the football is no more than five metres away, and contact which is incidental to a marking contest where a player is legitimately marking or attempting to mark the football. Tackling and shepherding in accordance with the Laws obviously do not constitute a reportable offence.

 

With the definition of intentional, the framers of these rules have encouraged the MRP to embark on post-incident mind-reading to determine intent. And this really throws up the capricious nature of the MRP’s deliberations.

 

Can there be any doubt that Campbell Brown intended to strike Callan Ward? We think not, yet we can only conclude that the MRP relied upon the phrase bolded in the recklessness definition and applied it very literally. In contrast, in one of the other incidents we highlighted in the first part of our MRP assessments discussion, the MRP was able to see into Heath Hocking’s mind and conclude a firm intent to commit a reportable offence despite the clear fact that the opposition player was in the process of applying an off-the-ball block — need we add again that this is illegal?

 

This is the real nub of the problem with the MRP. These assessments of intent, recklessness or negligence simply fail to match the expectations of disinterested fans. As a result, we’re constantly left scratching our heads over MRP decisions, trying to figure out how a group of apparently sane and rational human beings could get things so wrong.

 

AussieRulesBlog hopes that we’ve shed a tiny glimpse of light on the process. It is, of course, still more complex, but let’s take a little while to digest this new information.