Most will recall the announcement from the AFL that “the head is sacrosanct” — another in the line of zero-tolerance responses that to some degree failed because they didn’t acknowledge circumstance, nuance and context.

This week there was the first explicit acknowledgement that AussieRulesBlog can recall that the zero-tolerance approach to high contact was a mistake. Jeff Gieschen tells the Your Call segment on the AFL website that Cyril Rioli running head-first into a stationary Dean Polo should not have drawn a free kick for high contact.

Conditioned by the AFL’s track record, in the wake of the Adam Goodes slide tackle and suspension, nearly everyone piled into Lindsay Thomas over the incident in which Gary Rohan’s leg was broken. Any more than a cursory glance was sufficient to realise that Thomas’ actions were quite different to Goodes, but the community expected a zero-tolerance response.

The AFL today clarified its approach to slide tackles, putting the onus back on the sliding player to exercise a duty of care toward other players on the field.

“It is not illegal to slide to contest the ball, but players must be aware of the potential for injury if they slide into an opponent’s knees or ankles,” said Adrian Anderson.

It’s about time that some room for nuance and judgement was allowed. Zero tolerance works just fine — just as long as every incident is exactly the same. Introduce just one variation and the zero tolerance approach doesn’t cut it.

Back in November, we lamented what looked like the end of Robert Eddy’s AFL career. Thus, it was pleasing to note that the Saints had selected him in the Rookie draft, but there’s a catch.

As we were feeling pleased for Eddy, we recalled a story in the Hun a few days ago focussing on delisted Dons rookie, Marcus Marigliani.

Prior to being drafted, Marigliani says he was earning around $900k as a carpenter, plus another $30k or so playing footy. As a rookie with the Dons in 2010, effectively a full-time job, he cleared just $27,000.

So, while we celebrate Robert Eddy getting another chance, he’s going to have moths coming out of his wallet in 2011, going from being a contracted player to a rookie. Not much of a reward for having been good enough to be picked in a Grand Final team in consecutive weeks.

In another story, newly-returned assistant coach, club great Robert Harvey, mentions in passing that coach Ross Lyon has told Eddy he has a few things to work on — after being good enough to be chosen in a Grand final team in consecutive weeks. We reckon Lyon might have a few things to work on too just quietly.

We know that not everyone in a Grand Final team is a champion. There have to be ‘indians’ as well as ‘chiefs’ in every team. Nevertheless, we can’t help wondering, again, how Eddy will feel when he comes across ex-Richmond fringe player Dean Polo, who we reckon will be pocketing a decent bit more than $27k after being picked up in the national draft after Eddy had been delisted.

If it were us in Eddy’s spot, we reckon we’d put a good dose of extra venom into competitive work when we spied Polo on the other side of the contest.