790 points 7 weeks

[reigning premier]

I'd have said firstly that guilt ISN'T about intent - it's about your actions and their outcomes. The person who doesn't intend to run head-on into another vehicle and kill the driver is still guilty of a crime (assuming the judicial systems deems the person to be guilty) even though he didn't intend for it to happen. It's just the specifics of the crime that change, not the fact that one has been commited e.g. murder (premeditated) vs mansluaghter (unpremeditated) etc etc. I'm sure some of our legal boffins will have more to say on this!

Talk about a confusing statement. Youve just countered you're own argument in that one paragraph.

Guilt is pretty much yes or no but the resultant punishment should be based on intent and outcome.

Did he intend to knock out Staker?? I'd say not.

[swansrock4eva]

No my point is that intent (or lack thereof) determines what CHARGE they face, and then correspondingly the punishment if found guilty of that charge. Just because someone didn't INTEND to commit a crime (but still did commit it), doesn't mean they aren't guilty of the crime (but the degree differs).

In this case Barry probably didn't intend to knock him out, but he still did so and should face the appropriate penalty for intending to hit Staker at the very least (you can't tell me in that single second that he wasn't intending to at least make some sort of contact!). I think the penalty for him was appropriate, but the one for West was not because the AFL didn't seem to use consistency when assessing the two incidents.

[NMWBloods]

Now that the dust has settled (A little bit), Post tribunal, Is 7 weeks a fair punishment?

I would argue that the "niggle" was brought on by Staker and BBBBH just gave one back. Obviously a little to enthusiastically but the whole premise that he was king hit unexpectedley (And hence such the moral outrage and heavy punishment) is a farce.

Nothing that has been shown so far looks any different to any other player interaction. All Hall had to do was push him off and lead for the ball.

Yes, BBBBH shouldn't have punched him. But was it really unexpected?

I would think it was quite unexpected.

As for the contact itself, just because he threw a better one than anyone else has, should he be more severley punished than others that have TRIED to do the same? After all, isn't guilt all about intent?

Intent is a factor, but outcome is also a major one. Otherwise you would get the same punishment for someone who threw a punch and missed and one who broke someone's jaw.

[reigning premier]

Nothing that has been shown so far looks any different to any other player interaction. All Hall had to do was push him off and lead for the ball.

Think that's what he was trying to do. Having Staker as a boat anchor was slowing him down!

I would think it was quite unexpected.

You're mouthing off to someone and scragging them in the middle of a footy game and it's unexpected?

Intent is a factor, but outcome is also a major one. Otherwise you would get the same punishment for someone who threw a punch and missed and one who broke someone's jaw.

Intent is probably more important. Was his intent just to give him something to think about or to knock him senseless? Looking at it I would say the 1st. Unfortunately for BBBBH, he's far too good at what he does.