Mark Bickley has attempted to rationalise the apparent inconsistency that has shone through regarding the MRO and Tribunal this week.
Adelaide’s Shane McAdam was hit with a three-match suspension for his head-high bump on GWS defender Jacob Wehr on Sunday.
In comparison, Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett received a two-game ban for his flying bump on Western Bulldogs wingman Bailey Smith which was seen by many as a similar action to McAdam’s.
See both bumps below:
Shane McAdam has been sent straight to the tribunal for his bump on Jacob Wehr.
— AFL (@AFL) March 20, 2023
Full details on the Match Review Officer's findings: https://t.co/lV0jIIYbDg pic.twitter.com/UALj94aGB7
Kysaiah Pickett was placed on report midway through the second quarter for this incident.#AFLDeesDogs pic.twitter.com/wzzMINxvHw
— AFL (@AFL) March 18, 2023
Former Crows captain Bickley waded through the details in a bid to make some sense of the unpredictable nature of it all.
“They were able to explain it,” Bickley said on SEN SA Breakfast.
“The glitch in the system, well not the glitch, but the thing that confused many people is the wording which says, ‘The potential to cause severe impact’.
“You can upgrade the severity from low to medium to high to severe. It can go up two spots with the potential to cause injury.
“Incredibly, Kozzie Pickett’s was graded low initially because the player (Smith) just jumped straight back up, no ill-effects, played the rest of the game, didn’t go off the ground, didn’t get tested for concussion. So it was graded as low.
“Because Pickett’s had a very high chance of potentially causing injury it went up two spots, it went up from low to medium to high, which is a two-match ban.
“What happened with Shane McAdam was his was graded as medium because the player (Wehr) went off to get a concussion test, he was stunned, he was on the ground, he then came back on. But when you go up two spots from medium to high to severe, severe takes you straight to the Tribunal.
“That’s the abnormality in the system of how it ended with two (weeks for Pickett) to three (weeks to McAdam).”
Bickley wondered whether the fact the AFL is yet to replace Brad Scott in the general manager of football role to explain such decisions has caused a bit more consternation with these cases.
“Common sense has to prevail and this is where there is a glaring hole at the moment because there is no head of football at the AFL,” he added.
“If Brad Scott was there, my expectation would be this morning that Brad Scott would be sitting down in front of a press conference for all to hear explaining forensically how this has happened and why it’s happened and most likely say we’re about to change that rule because we don’t want examples of this to happen again.
“This morning, who do we expect to talk about this? Is it Gil McLachlan? It’s go to be someone of weight to explain to the football public what they’re going to do to make sure something like this where two instances happen, almost identical, and we get different results.”
The two-time premiership skipper would support the same length suspension for McAdam and Pickett but is at a loss to explain why there have been differing outcomes.
“I wouldn’t be unhappy if Pickett and McAdam got three,” Bickley said.
“It’s really about consistency and that’s where people (find frustration). Sometimes we get upset with the Tribunal because we’re comparing it to what happened six months ago, so you can imagine how upset people are when you compare it to something that happened one day ago.
“You can understand that maybe there’s some slight changes in interpretation over six months or over 12 months or with Patrick Dangerfield two years ago The landscape has changed in regards to head knocks and concussion, we’ve seen lawsuits and there’s a heightened awareness of it.
“That is the thing that makes everyone put their hands in the air. How can we have inconsistency between things that happened so close together?
“It’s mind boggling.”
The Crows are expected to appeal McAdam’s three-game suspension.