Macca: Patrick Dangerfield’s bump ban sends message to rest of league — the head is sacrosanct

The AFL had no choice but to ban Patrick Dangerfield for his hit on Jake Kelly and it sends a strong message to the rest of the competition.

Sorry Danger, this was the only reasonable outcome that could have been reached.

The AFL tribunal’s decision to suspend Patrick Dangerfield for three matches for his late bump on Adelaide’s Jake Kelly last Saturday shouldn’t solely be seen through the prism of the Geelong superstar missing key games against Brisbane, Hawthorn and Melbourne.

There is a more far-reaching aspect to this much-debated case that will send a statement to the rest of the AFL competition, and importantly to all levels of the game.

The head – forevermore – is sacrosanct.

The player who elects to bump – and who intentionally or unintentionally makes high contact that results in concussion to an opposition player – waives all rights to claim accidental contact.

Importantly, if the impact is deemed severe, they can also expect a lengthy suspension.

This isn’t to say Dangerfield – who has polled more Brownlow Medal votes than any other current player and won the award in 2016 – is a dirty player.

He is certainly far from that …

But he made a bad decision in a split second moment, and will pay the price, given concussion and the ongoing impact of head knocks is the most important issue confronting the AFL now and into the future.

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The AFL had no choice but to ban Patrick Dangerfield for his hit on Jake Kelly.

Just moments after the tribunal – chaired by Ross Howie with jury members Richard Loveridge, Paul Williams and Jason Johnson – reached their verdict, Dangerfield confirmed he won’t be challenging the penalty.

“The game is a collision game, there are accidents that happen and it is still a very difficult game to officiate and play at stages,” a disappointed Dangerfield told Channel 7.

“There will still be a place for the bump to occur … but we have got to be respectful of minimising contact to the head while playing.”

The bump isn’t dead; it lives, but in a very different form.

What has changed inexorably is the onus on the player instigating the bump.

Kelly was left with serious injuries after the hit. Picture: AFL Photos/Getty Images

If an opposition player is concussed, regardless of your intentions, you are in trouble.

As president of the AFL Players Association, Dangerfield knows full well the spectre of concussion sits like an ominous cloud over the game.

Across the past year there have been three past players from different generations posthumously diagnosed with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) – Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer, Danny Frawley and Shane Tuck – as well as a host of former players suffering great personal pain from the ongoing impact of concussions.

Dangerfield, the player, has every right to feel disappointed with the result, with his counsel Ben Ihle unable to convince the tribunal to downgrade the impact from severe.

Ihle used three definitions of “severe” to stress his point – from the Oxford and Macquarie dictionaries as well as from Siri.

None of them worked.

He tried to argue there was a difference between a bump to the head compared to a bump that results in a clash of heads.

Howie took exception to Ihle’s claim that Dangerfield’s tackling technique had attempted to mitigate the damage.

The compelling factor was the Adelaide medical report which detailed Kelly had suffered “a significant loss of consciousness” as well as a broken nose, which will leave him on the sidelines for at least one game, but possibly more.

Dangerfield’s defence was only ever seen as a throw at the stumps, given AFL guidelines changed after the Ryan Burton-Shaun Higgins incident in 2018.

But as frustrating as it would be for him personally, its impact is certain to be a landmark moment for the game going forward.

Originally published as Macca: Patrick Dangerfield’s bump ban sends message to rest of league — the head is sacrosanct