Good morning all and what a weekend of football we've had! We've been spoiled since the bye with an incredible number of games decided by less than 10 points, and with the Swans keeping their opponents in the game through awful kicking, rather than simply brushing them aside like an annoying fly.
The past weekend holds particular reverence, as "good bloke" Bachar Houli was done for, well, bashing a guy on the field, and Tomas Bugg and AFL diversity chief Ali Fahour were reported in different leagues for knocking blokes out.
It's all well and good to fly the flag when a player is getting roughed up behind play, but there's absolutely nothing worth celebrating with what those two individuals did.
Calling them players is a far stretch, and thugs doesn't do their cowardly actions justice. Worse though, is that both players have history with their actions, and it isn't the first time either players have acted disgracefully on the football field.
One thing that particularly stands out is the bizarre response from the AFL in declining to discipline or publicly comment on the Ali Fahour position until the Northern Football League's tribunal has adjudicated on Wednesday.
There's absolutely no way that he can keep his job with the AFL, not after knocking an unsuspecting player out and being immediately red carded.
The player has no knowledge of the act and common sense would call for the police to be involved.
"My wife was right there, she always sits at that end of the ground.
"She can't talk about it, she just starts crying every time it's brought up. I have two little girls; a two-and-a-half year old and a three-month-old."
The Bugg hit on Callum Mills was as bad as it gets on an AFL field and should have the same, if not worse ramifications than the Hall hit on Staker.
Time will tell, and whether or not the AFL has any guts this time to do something about it. For all their effort to stamp out head contact and disgraceful football acts on and off the field, the last month has certainly fixed the spotlight firmly on the MRP and tribunal.
And they've failed the test, spectacularly, one might add. From "good bloke" gate and numerous players getting off for all sorts of striking, elbowing and kneeing offences, the tribunal is as toothless and useless as it ever was.
Titus and I discuss the MRP, striking and head high contact at length, and talk about what should happen to Bugg and Fahour. It's just ridiculous that these things still happen on the field, and the players just seem as though they don't really care.
There'll be another case like Blake Caracella's career ending on one fateful night, that will force the AFL into action, and add consistency to something that desperately needs it.
They've come full circle over the last 15 years, changing rules to protect the head at all cost, to basically abandoning them this year and being laughed out of the room with their jumper punch-gate response.
This week I'm joined by Titus O'Reily and we discuss all that above and more, including the MRP, Horn and Pacquaio fight, concussions, striking and one punches, as well as Danny Green's absurd defence of Tomas Bugg.
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