Not all games are equal. This radical idea for grand final punishments proves it

The most commonly uttered words in football this week related to Lachie Neale, which is quite a feat given Hawthorn, abuse and umpires would top any Google News search.

The first was the refrain: “You shouldn’t miss a grand final for that.”

But it also commonly included a rejoinder: “Players have got a week for that all year. He has to go.”

The third was pithier: “He’s lucky they took the good bloke defence out of compelling and exceptional circumstances.”

Few people would have been more invested in the Neale tribunal decision than Greg Swann. It was Swann who started last season as the Brisbane CEO and ended it as the AFL football boss who personally drove a rule change to elevate minor gut punches to a level demanding a one-week suspension, rather than a fine.

“I don’t see why that isn’t a penalty, to be honest. I think if you do penalise it, it’ll stop. The fines aren’t doing it,” Swann told Fox Footy in July last year when he started in the job, adding the level of force would be less consequential in these punches.

And so this year, gut punches have carried a one game suspension. And in the AFL a game is a game is a game. The AFL has never discriminated between being suspended for a grand final and missing round 13 in the rain in Canberra. There is a logic behind why they don’t differentiate, but everyone else does.

And in fact in other ways the AFL does differentiate between games. Offences committed in the grand final draw a heftier penalty than those committed any other week. So the league acknowledges the principle that grand finals are different. In this instance, they did so because they were sick of their showcase game being tarnished by annual brawls.

So the AFL adds multiples to suspensions and fines for offences committed in the grand final. What if we adopted a similarly flexible approach in the preliminary final?

What if any player who was found guilty in a preliminary final of an offence that would ordinarily draw a one-week suspension was instead allowed to play the grand final and serve a one-month suspension at the start of the next season?

How many would take the one week? I would guess none.

How many would take the first few matches of the new season? At a guess, everyone.

This might have a quirky consequence were it in place this year, as it would allow Neale to play in the grand final then sit out the first month for Collingwood next year. But putting that aside, this idea would redress the disconnect between the AFL and the fans and players when it comes to recognising the significance of grand finals.

I don’t expect the AFL to introduce this idea, and I’m not even sure they should, given the unfairness to Fremantle of allowing a player to play in the grand final whom the tribunal accepts will be suspended for a month next year. But the exercise of asking who would choose a one-month ban over missing a grand final reinforces the point that grand finals are worth more than regular games.

The current rules mean relatively minor offences draw major punishments.

The AFL could consider a version of the Briginshaw test in grand final week. That is, the seriousness of the penalty must be weighed against the seriousness of the offence, rather than just accepting that if the player committed this careless act, then this is the penalty.

This would mean asking, how serious was the offence? Was it at the high end of careless or the low end? Because guilty the sentence this week is missing a grand final, which is tantamount to a multiple week suspension. Not all games are equal.

Neale’s case could never hinge on whether he hit Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan – clearly he swung an arm and struck him in the guts. It also was off the ball, and so worse than the sort of tummy tap Swann had in mind with the rule change at the start of the year.

The query was whether, once guilty, he deserved leniency in sentencing given his suspension-free 320 games and two Brownlow medals.

The question is, should the AFL also weigh, along with those considerations, the greater significance of missing a grand final?

The only certainty on Tuesday night as the tribunal’s decision to uphold the one-match suspension came down was that Neale may have surpassed James Sicily for a line of quickfire expletives.