The first impression is that the penalty far exceeds the crime and an injustice has been done. Baker seems very unlucky.
The concept of luck, good fortune or even random chance is a though that tends to unnerve us all.
Even more so in professional sport where the aim is to remove the uncontrollables to contrive an end result that comes totally from effort and execution. This is an elusive aim.
My first coach at Hawthorn, the great John Kennedy, once said that how could footy be fair when we play with an oval ball.
Absolute justice and fairness will often be a highly debatable quality. While we like everything to be either black or white, the fact is that many shades of grey will always exist.
As footy has evolved over the decades, what is now regarded as illegal contact has increased many fold. There is much more grey in guilt or innocence now, and is so often a question of individual judgement or individual interpretation of the laws of the game.
When it comes to umpiring decisions and match review panel findings, the element of being lucky or unlucky will regularly apply.
In round 12, Chris Judd could have been charged for the backhanded contact that split the cheek of Matthew Pavlich. We look at the incident a couple of teams and make a quick judgement.
My view? Not a definite report but probably should have been charged. The match review panel, consisting of three people, look at the incident over and over again from a variety of angles and come to the conclusion that Judd has no case to answer.
Was Judd lucky? In my opinion, yes he was. Was an injustice done? In my opinion, no.
It was a line-ball decision and Judd got the benefit of the doubt.
Baker's situation is very different. While the 12-week headline is accurate, the detail is that he was charged with four separate offences and a bad suspension record meant that any penalty was increased by 50 per cent.
From my viewing of the four incidents, he was definitely guilty of two and a bit unlucky on the other two. There was some valid argument that the match review panel should always charge players who have any element of possible guilt and let the tribunal determine final guilt or innocence.
This policy has been followed in the four Baker incidents, but probably not in the Judd one. It should always be remembered that the whole match review panel format is to offer a player a penalty with a 25 per cent discount for pleading guilty to avoid a time consuming tribunal hearing
St Kilda and Baker will decide to contest any of the four charges. However, I feel for the match review panel; all it has done is apply the rules from the vision available.
They found four separate incidents to be reportable and the 50 per cent bad record loading is not of their doing, but from a system to further penalise repeat offenders.
So, as usual, a 12-week suspension is a big headline but also, as usual, the devil is in the detail.
Judd was lucky not to be charged and Baker was unlucky in regard to total penalty.
I have no problem accepting the judgment of the three-person match review panel, even if at times I might individually disagree.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
