A SYSTEM which bans Jack Ziebell from the same amount of football as Sharrod Wellingham is a system which needs reviewing.
 
It is not just the Ziebell example that prompts this observation. In 2012, the AFL's Match Review Panel is continuing to arrive at outcomes that, simply, confuse.
 
It is clearly battling to find consistency in rulings on key game events, particularly sliding and high hits in marking contests.
 
The points system used to determine the seriousness of incidents is fine in principle, but not reality. One incident is deemed to be negligent, a near-identical one reckless. Impact on one day is high, on another it will be medium. Like a lot of things in football, it is opinion only. At times, it has to be guesswork.
 
And when the system then factors in early pleas, carryover points, good behavior records, and bad behaviour records, outcomes can be unjust.
 
The system has also allowed Friday night's incident involving Chris Judd to be embarrassingly and damagingly dragged out.
 
The debate started the moment Judd grabbed the arm of North Melbourne's Leigh Adams, a bit after 8.30pm last Friday. It was the only footy topic anyone wanted to know about on Saturday. It continued to dominate talk on Sunday.
 
It was still back page news on Monday, and there's at least another 24 hours, possibly 48 and maybe even 72 - if Judd chooses to appeal the tribunal outcome - to come.
 
The intrigue around Judd himself and the unique nature of his actions against Adams meant this story was destined for the ramped-up media and public treatment from the moment it happened.
 
But the fact that it has dragged out so long already, and will continue to be dragged out, is not good for anyone, particularly Judd, Adams, Carlton, North Melbourne, and the AFL.
 
This is where the AFL needs to move with the times, sharpen its football department operations, to ensure such incidents are not laboriously and boringly played out.
 
As part of the overhaul of its player discipline structure, the AFL should immediately order its Match Review Panel  to rule on a match the moment it is completed, or at worst, first thing the next morning.
 
In instituting such a directive, Judd and the rest of us would have known by Saturday morning exactly what the MRP felt of his actions.
 
In Judd's case, it ruled that he must go to the tribunal. Go a step further, and have a tribunal system that can hear cases on Saturdays and Sundays.
 
The system, as well as the match review panel, got Ziebell. A bad record and carryover points saw him given three weeks (with an early plea) for a clumsy collision with Carlton's Aaron Joseph.
 
The same system spared Wellingham, who very questionably the previous week contacted Carlton's Kade Simpson, ultimately breaking his jaw.

The system arrived at three weeks, after ruling contact to be reckless and not intentional, and ridiculously factoring in a five-year AFL good behavior record, despite Wellingham being a rookie and ineligible to play in the first of those five years.
 
Wellingham went the man and not the ball. Match review panel chairman Mark Fraser conceded Ziebell was looking at the ball.
 
Six match review panel findings have been overturned by the tribunal in 2012. Again, one group's opinion differs to another group's.
 
The tribunal this year has shown it has more "feel" for football than the MRP, and has fortunately been able to fix MRP findings involving Greg Broughton, Brendan Whitecross, Leigh Montagna, Lindsay Thomas, Steve Johnson and Jeremy Cameron.
 
On sliding, the match review panel has all but abandoned policing it. Early in the year, harsh adjudications were made on players sliding, including Thomas and Broughton. There have been as many sliding "incidents" in recent rounds as the early part of the year; it's just that the focus has disappeared.
 
The MRP has come down very hard, rightly, on Adelaide's Taylor Walker for sling tackles, against Geelong's Harry Taylor and Richmond's Steve Morris. Yet it raised eyebrows when it spared Hawk Buddy Franklin an adverse finding.
 
The MRP pays a lot of attention to injuries caused in incidents. But surely a player's intent would be a better barometer when it comes to penalty.
 
At the end of the year, hopefully an independent body will be asked by the AFL to pull apart every decision made by the match review panel in 2012. Demand thorough answers on why, for instance, Jeremy Cameron was cited last week and Trent Cotchin wasn't cited this week.
 
No matter which way you spin it, when Ziebell and Wellingham emerge with the same sanction, something is really wrong.
 
Twitter: @barrettdamian, @AFL