Comments on: Solomon penalty harsh http://gorey.com.au/solomon-penalty-harsh Random thoughts and observations Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:37:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Michael Outhwaite http://gorey.com.au/solomon-penalty-harsh/comment-page-1#comment-38301 Michael Outhwaite Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:45:28 +0000 http://gorey.com.au/?p=2354#comment-38301 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 ...<a href="http://michaelouthwaite.blogspot.com/2008/07/harveys-odyssey-iii-blind-prophet.html" rel="nofollow">Harvey's Odyssey III: The Blind Prophet</a> 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

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