Former AFL player Hamish Brayshaw has penned an open letter to the AFL, calling out the league’s tribunal and match review flaws as a “joke”.
Brayshaw delivered a four-minute take-down of the AFL on a recent podcast appearance and pleaded with the league to fix it’s broken match review system.
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The AFL Tribunal has come under fire from all corners of the game over decisions that have left many fans and commentators confused.
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It’s here where Brayshaw’s issues lie, with the former West Coast Eagles player citing multiple moments where the league have made differing calls on similar incidents.
“The tribunal and match review panel are single-handedly destroying the game. You are making it impossible to play in good spirit, you’re making it impossible to adjudicate and you’re not far off making it impossible to support,” Brayshaw said on the Backchat Studios podcast.
The 26-year-old slammed the fact that more factors than ever before are coming into play when incidents are coming under scrutiny by the match review officer and the Tribunal.
“Protect the head at all costs, obviously unless a head knock is as a result of a football act, but then it depends on how hard you get hit in that football act and if the player had any other alternatives,” he said.
“But also the player needs to take into account the potential to cause harm, but of course it shouldn’t depend on the outcome of the opponent, unless of course it does result in a concussion.
“Really it all boils down to protecting the head because we’re seeing more players retire from concussion than ever before, but we will still let a guy play next week after punching someone in the face in the goalsquare because it wasn’t hard enough to hurt them.”
Brayshaw said the league, despite its continuous remarks about protecting the head, continued to flip flop on outcome-based incidents that unfolded.
He singled out his brother Angus’ incident during the Magpies-Demons qualifying final last year that left him concussed and ultimately saw him call time on his career at the hands of medical advice.
Despite Brayshaw being knocked out cold, Maynard was cleared of any wrongdoing at the AFL Tribunal and took his place in Collingwood’s preliminary final contest.
“You certainly didn’t care all for the outcome there and Brayden went on to win a premiership. That is precedence,” he said.
“That was as big a defining moment for the tribunal as I can remember, and you went with protecting the sanctity of the game over the protection of the player. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with that, but it is breaking me that you are constantly backflipping on that stance.”
Brayshaw pointed to several suspensions that had been handed out this year and the differing penalties despite being almost similar incidents.
“Peter Wright and Toby Greene, four weeks and one week respectively for football acts with not a whole lot of difference,” he said.
“Jeremy Finlayson got less than Peter Wright for a homophobic slur which once again highlights that nobody at the AFL really knows what’s happening at the tribunal, you just make it up as you see fit.
“We’ve heard enough about Charlie Cameron being let off for being a nice guy but Tom Barrass can’t escape a week for the same thing.”
The Tribunal’s constant change of governance each week has left countless fans infuriated, with Brayshaw saying the game has become nothing more than a “joke”.
“AFL you are the greatest game in the world, but right now you’re a joke. Your systems for protecting the player and maintaining the integrity of the game are broken and desperately need to be fixed,” he said.
“You can’t pick and choose when to dismiss certain things and when to change your views on others. It has to change otherwise this game is going to turn into something unrecognisable and it’s going to happen very quickly.”
Hamish currently plays for East Perth in the West Australian Football League while Angus has moved into a position on the Demons’ coaching staff following his medical retirement from the game.
Hamish’ younger brother Andrew currently plays for the Fremantle Dockers.
