I was expecting Dean Solomon to be rubbed out between four and six weeks for his crude hit on Geelong midfielder Cameron Ling.
Solomon’s penalty is the harshest for an AFL player since Carlton’s Greg Williams was suspended for nine weeks after pushing an umpire in 1997.
Big Bad Barry Hall only copped seven weeks for striking West Coast’s Brent Staker.
Solomon pleaded guilty. More importantly, he showed obvious remorse, including an immediate apology to Ling after the game.
The tribunal may have taken into account Ling’s injury, which will see him out of the game for about six weeks.
Ling has a depressed fracture of the cheekbone that required surgery.
In mitigation, a lot of respected players and Kevin Sheedy said Solomon’s action was out of character. Nobody was saying that about Barry Hall.
There is some inconsistency here. If Hall’s blow was worth seven weeks (as it was), Solomon’s hit did not deserve a bigger penalty.
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I agree Michael, even allowing for my love of the Dockers. At least Solomon was somewhere near the ball – Barry Hall just turned around and punched a bloke in the face.
A few issues with the tribunal system are:
1. Past crimes are taken into account. There is a positives and negatives to this. A players record should maybe have some influence on the penalty, but should not determine guilt or innocence, which it seems to in some cases.
2. You should be able to appeal without risking further penalty. That you can gain weeks on the sideline and lose $10,000 for appealing is insane: you either did the crime or you didn’t. The penalty shouldn’t change based on how the verdict was reached.
3. A club can’t point to precedents. This allows the tribunal to be dramatically inconsistent.
4. The points system takes discretion out of the equation, and provides something for the tribunal to hide behind.
Anyway, none of these things take away the fact that Solomon elbowed Lig in the face. I reckon 5-6 weeks would have been right.
Michael Outhwaites most recent article …Harvey’s Odyssey III: The Blind Prophet