I was reading a post on BB about this which impressed me with its argument. However I was more impressed by a bomber fan on that forum that can articulate in a coherent way without resorting to abuse.
PS I can't guarentee he didn't lift this from somewhere
http://www.bomberblitz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47090"We acknowledge the shepherd was executed with a good technique" AFL legal Counsel Jeff Gleeson.
This statement is the crux of the entire matter, and reveals that the game is no longer the same. People are bemoaning that the head has always been protected, and that this is nothing new, but they ignore what the logical extension is.
A player can no longer go into a physical clash and know that, even if he does everything absolutely perfectly and within the written rules of the game, he is safe from the side effects. Just consider that for a moment. Not only is he now liable for his own actions, and expected to adhere to a strict code of behaviour, but he is also expected to somehow divine the future and allow for unforseen eventualities. In essence, we now demand that he predict the manifestly unpredictable. In a game that is literally BUILT on it's unpredictableness!
We use a non-predictable ball. Deliberately. We delight in seeing our greatest players track a ball that may bounce to the right one second, then shift back to the left. They prop, they shift their weight, they are in constant and random motion. It is the key to the game. And yet last night we introduced a new factor - you must be held accountable for not predicting what we really don't want you to predict anyway. Supporters of last nights events claim that the bump is not dead, it just has to be delivered correctly. Thing is, even the AFL admit that it was delivered correctly. The only thing Maxwell could have done differently was ......drumroll........ not to bump at all! Yep, Bingo! You've just killed it, in one swoop, without even having to declare it. It's simple: Players cannot now go into a contest, manage their actions perfectly, and be safe from retribution. So they won't. How can they?
