Adam Goodes – Protected Species?

Is there a hotter topic at the moment than the talk of Adam Goodes being a ‘protected species’? Sadly I don’t think so. Internet forums have been raging in debate over his latest incident – a head high bump on the Eagles’ Adam Selwood at the weekend. Goodes has been offered merely a reprimand with an early guilty plea – an offer which has infuriated many an AFL supporter.

Why all the hate? Well from a quick browse of the forms, it all stems from a number of incidents in recent years where Goodes seems to be walking a very fine line, yet he’s always on the right side. Earlier in the year he got off at the tribunal after a questionable striking incident at the SCG, one a number of people thought he would definitely go for (we covered the incident with our Goodes Reputation article).

Now, Goodes has been charged with the hottest tribunal issue of the year – making head-high contact to a player with his head over the ball. A charge which as seen the likes of Sean Burgoyne, Brett Burton, Robert Murphy and Beau Waters wear suspensions in recent weeks. Yet Goodes appears likely to be allowed to front up next week.

The key issue in all of the above cases is the player on the receiving end (with the exception of Slattery in Burton’s case) left the ground after being hit, whereas in Goodes’ case, Selwood was able to take the free kick and kick a goal. On face value, it would seem fair. But is that all there is to the issue?

Goodes’ contact with Selwood was deemed by the match review panel as negligent, low impact and high conduct. The 125 demerit points will be reduced to 93.75 and a reprimand with an early guilty plea. But was the incident merely negligent, or was there more involved?

Burgoyne, Burton, Waters, Murphy – all these cases involved the player making a hard bump, intended or otherwise, while appearing to make a play at the ball or the player with it. All were either focused on the ball or the player with the ball.

While we currently have no access to footage of the Goodes incident, Goodes seems far from focused on making a play at the ball, or the player. Is this negligent? Was Goodes’ bump – as soft as it may be – intentional, or at the least reckless? Consider this:

• Goodes runs upright past Selwood – collecting his head with his hip. At no stage does he make any attempt to play the ball, or even apply a tackle.
• Media pundits have noted Goodes is not even looking at Selwood or the ball. His opponent is gathering the ball in a dangerous position – what is a player of Goodes’ ability doing not even taking notice? In my eyes, this makes it more likely Goodes was planning to clip Selwood in the head with his hip, and by ‘not focusing’ on what he is doing he will be more likely to get away with it.
• Selwood was tagging Goodes, and the two had been involved in a scuffle just prior to the incident. Would Goodes not be looking to get one up on his opponent, especially in the heat of the moment?

You might have worked out by now where I stand on this particular incident – although I could see how he was able to get off on his last trip to the tribunal, I think the Match Review Panel have dropped the ball on this one.

Interesting that the Swans initially claimed they might fight the charge at the tribunal before Goodes accepted the reprimand today. Make no mistake, the Swans are very canny operators – this is not the first time they have officially made a noise before ‘reluctantly’ agreeing to their penalty – see the 19 man fiasco, and even Barry Hall’s hit on Brent Staker. But that’s another story for another day…