Junior football tribunal penalty criticised

14 Responses to “Junior football tribunal penalty criticised”

1. snow on November 13th, 2009 1:24 pm 1

   I don’t know anything about the incident but when Millicent is involved the crime is always worse than Mt Gambier offenders. The most important thing to remember is that there is always two sides to a story and that not always both are told truthfully. Another thing to remember is the standard or bias of the of the umpiring in the competion, very anti Millicent and this causes frustration with players when it is so blaitant to everybody watching the game. Just get on with playing a game of footy and let the kids play a fair to both sides game of footy instead of complaining about one unfortunate inccident.
2. the diplomat on November 13th, 2009 4:04 pm 2

   It is funny how regional clubs scratch their head about declining numbers, lack of volunteers and no sustainability. This is right across the board for all clubs all around Australia. Yet the truth is families are sick of the culture of violence, bullying and treatment of women in the clubs. The language and behaviour I hear from parents at these games is shocking and filters through to the behaviour of the child on the ground. The kids think that social norms and ethical behaviour are allowed to lapse under the justification of sport and that any disagreements, personality clashes or problems must be solved with violence or terrible verbal attacks.

   Until coaches and clubs and the courts start severely punishing the perpetrators (including ugly parent syndrome and others who fuel it) more and more parents will pull their kids out of sports such as footy and soccer. This will cause more mergers of teams, smaller leagues, less membership money and eventually closure.

   There is no secret about the rising numbers in individual sports such as martial arts, tennis etc and it is because people are sick of bringing kids to this ugly environment. I wonder if the sports field values are a reflection of the values being taught at home.

   Women’s sports are just as bad. I went to a Millicent softball game last year where the cops were called and the game cancelled because of the manner the game was played. Most players were visibly drinking UDLs, the crowd were also drinking and encouraging anti-social behaviour and the language was disgraceful. The whole day would put men to shame and sadly, the 2 teams seemed proud of their behaviour as if it is their right because they are Millicent girls. Very sad. Also sad for the young kids who watched their Mums fight, swear and carry on and then drove them home before the cops came despite all the UDLs they had consumed.

   I went to watch a family member, but will never return. My kids witnessed it all and they should not have to. But this issue is not unique to Millicent.
3. JD on November 13th, 2009 5:56 pm 3

   Junior football. Training our future Australian to be thugs. Let’s face it, that’s all football players are. Only got to look at their end of year trips, also seems to be a lot of media coverage over the past few years of professional players involved in off-field violence and sexual assault acts.

   Like boxing, a pointless sport.
4. H on November 13th, 2009 9:55 pm 4

   The law doesn’t stop at the white line.. This sounds like first degree assault, and should be investigated AND PENALISED as such, by the Police..
5. sports fan on November 15th, 2009 10:06 am 5

   firstly, i would like to start by saying that i witnessed both of the incidents mentioned in the article and peoples comments.

   the young man involved in the incident is a fine young member of the millicent football club and he and his family have contributed to the club both on and off of the field for many, many years. he has represented the league at numerous events, thus proving that coaches around the league think that he is a talented and FAIR player.

   the assumption that this young man was innocent an unprovoked that “attack” is also untrue, many witnesses saw the boy targetting the millicent player in previous play. there had also been comments from parents on the side.

   had the coach told his player to pull his head in and play good, clean football, and the umpires taken control and umpired a fair and unbiased game i am more than confident that this incident would not have occurred.

   week in, week out our senior footballers are also given the very raw end of the stick when playing. we are given the same umpires most weeks who are so biased against the millicent players that even opposition spectators begin to comment on it. come on western border, lets make it a fair game.

   with regards to the softball incident, i was a member of the softball association at the time of the incident. we had codes of conduct in place. the association had run very successfully and involved senior and junior players for many years. unfortunately a group of players came to the association and were not willing to follow the code of conduct. the committee made numerous efforts to bring the game back in line but were in the end powerless to have any effect. the payers involved in the incident were punished accordingly. the team disbanded. the association is now left with a tarnished reputation, dwindiling numbers and a large mess to clean up. the committee have worked hard to implement strong codes of conduct and player behaviour agreements.
6. H on November 15th, 2009 6:01 pm 6

   Unfortunately, prison is full of people who had brain snaps..

   Sorry to harp on along these lines, but life is often unfair without having umpires to supply some kind of control, and it’s about time this played out on the sporting field too..
7. rider on November 16th, 2009 8:05 am 7

   sports fan, I understand that you believe that the player involved in the junior football match was somehow provoked into punching the victim during a passage of play.

   How does this justify a severely broken jaw from an incident off the ball?

   I am of the opinion that he was not provoked as for the entirety of the game, several Millicent juniors — including the attacker — played an overly aggressive style of Football, raising elbows in bumps and showing a general disregard for the safety of their opponents.

   Furthermore, in the break after the incident, I overheard a parent from the victim’s Club say something along the lines of “get your son’s act together” to who I believed to be the father of the attacker, to which he was met with profanity.

   The Millicent player involved in the incident no doubt has some fine football skills, given his history at both Club and a higher level.

   But this does not excuse nor justify the game he played that day.
8. Shane on November 16th, 2009 10:03 am 8

   Forget what club the player was from, that is just emotive.
   Ignore what town he grew up in or where he lives, that is irrelevant the facts of this case are simple.
   The offence is striking, intentional, to the head, high impact, premeditated obviously, significant injury.
   Jaws don’t just break even if the umpire didn’t see it, there were independant witnesses.
   In any other sport, in fact in any other Aussie rule league this would be at least a season probably a life ban.

   The Club if it has any sense of right and wrong will delist the player for the 2010 season.
9. snow on November 16th, 2009 9:45 pm 9

   Typical Mt.Gambier whingers they laugh about the bias umpiring towards Millicent teams that play in the WBFL and also the junior league that plays on Sundays but when things go against them all hell breaks out. As for H and Shane they want to get a real life as this is not what happens with sport in this league because it is only Mt.Ganbier that counts.
10. H on November 16th, 2009 10:30 pm 10

    Hey snow, I have a real life, in the real world, where actions have real consequences..

    This is the example you want kids learning the game to follow? There’s a big difference between going in hard and playing with ignorant aggression.
11. Shane on November 17th, 2009 12:22 pm 11

    By my recollection Snow Millicent didn’t do all that well in the finals in the under 16’s or the U14’s but that isn’t relevant.
    My point was that it is completely irrelevant what team the player comes from the penalty must be proportionate to the severity and impact of the transgression and in this case it wasn’t.!
    I would be just as outraged if the player was from a Mt Gambier team.
    You want to encourage thuggery go ahead, but don’t complain when these kids have grown up and think it’s ok to belt someone to get your own way!

    I sincerely hope not, I would never wish that on anyone.
12. JaydenC. on November 18th, 2009 12:27 pm 12

    Snow and sports fan, your claims of umpire bias are nothing but emotive and offensive. I’ve been involved in officiating several sports incl. WBFL, I’m generally only involved in senior matches but still. I can assure you that it is only in the rarest of rare cases of actual corruption where any intentional bias occurs at all (I think deep down you already know this so you should probably take a deep breath before insulting real people’s credibility in a public forum).
    If you want top level umpiring, go and follow the AFL (and even they make regular mistakes). The fact is, if the umpires were perfect, they wouldn’t be wasting their time with u/16 WBFL lol, they’d be off to the MCG.

    My experience tells me this isn’t an entirely isolated case and the WBFL tribunals must ditch the weak penalties and lift their game.
    I agree with H myself, it sounds like first degree assault and should be investigated as such by the police. If it were up to me, the kid would be out for a year if not much longer, even if his opponent was annoying and the umpires biased!
13. L on November 19th, 2009 5:10 pm 13

    The WBJFL needs to address all of this public debate. Good luck. I bet it’s something they’ve known was coming, but now there needs to be a clear message sent to parents everywhere that the welfare of their kids will be protected and that the league is responsible for dealing appropiately with members that take advantage of a system to commit assault (that is what this was; provoked, unprovoked, this team, that team, this town, that town, whatever — it was a deliberate hit to cause harm and get away with it.) To play junior footy is a privledge only possible because of wonderful volunteers (the parents usually.) For kids to enjoy playing footy (and life in general) there are rules. Kids have to step up, do the right thing and play fair, and adults need to support them, not make excuses and attempt to justify bad behaviour, help them to address the mess they may have got themself into properly. Assault of any kind at any level in any environment is not tolerated by law — this should guide a tribunal and make their job easier you would think! This is kids footy for goodness sake — every attitude from adults forms part of their development as members of the community — isn’t it up to us to set the right examples?
14. Shane on November 20th, 2009 10:00 am 14

    L and JaydenC you are right, the WBJFL must set a guiding example for clubs to administer their own codes of conduct.

    My child plays U14’s for a Mt Gambier team and a teammate was suspended from playing for several matches for disputing an umpires decision. No one, not even the player, disagreed with the penalty in context of the transgression.

    However, now when compared to the much more serious matter of striking it looks like an over reaction, which it was not.

    I’m not a fan of mandatory penalties, but if the WBJFL tribunal cannot see its way to administering deterrent penalties then maybe that area needs to be considered.

    This issue will not go away.

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