Michael Christian on Reid’s gesture, Lobb and why Danger wasn’t banned

AFL Match Review Officer Michael Christian has provided some further explanations on a few of his decisions from Round 2 of the AFL season.

Speaking on SEN's Whateley, Christian discussed three incidents that garnered a lot of media attention - Rory Lobb’s spoil gone wrong on Mason Cox, Harley Reid showing the middle finger to the Brisbane crowd and Patrick Dangerfield’s high elbow on Ryan Byrnes.

Both Lobb and Dangerfield weren’t offered bans for their actions and Christian detailed why, while also explaining his role in the Reid incident and how the AFL views it.

Check out his responses on the big incidents here.

On why Rory Lobb wasn’t suspended for his spoil gone wrong on Mason Cox

“Just for background, what I do is first try and assess the conduct of a particular incident,” Christian told SEN Whateley.

“So, it's effectively three options - to do nothing or to grade conduct as careless or intentional.

“Then we get about where the contact actually occurs (above or below the neck), and then the final piece to the puzzle is the impact.

“If an incident is graded as not careless or not intentional, there's no need to go to impact.

“In the particular case of Rory Lobb, there are a number of factors that I consider, and the AFL considers in terms of what a genuine spoiling attempt is.

“What we've got the benefit of is numerous camera angles that allow us to really home in on a couple of specifics, including where Rory's eyes were. I determined that his eyes were firmly fixed on the ball during the entirety of the ball's flight.

“The second point is about the spoiling action itself, and he extended his arm in what I would call a genuine spoiling attempt. It wasn't a swinging arm, it wasn't a big round arm that I think can get players into trouble from time to time.

“The third point is about how close he did get to the ball, and the angles showed that if he didn't touch the ball, he was very close to it.

“The fourth point is where was the ball in relation to the player, Mason Cox? Mason marked the ball pretty much right in front of his face.

“Not any one of those factors in itself is going to determine whether the spoiling attempt was genuine, but in a holistic sense, putting them all together, I determined that it was a genuine spoiling attempt.

“We do understand that accidents do happen and in this particular case, I think Rory's attempt to spoil was a genuine one.

“Yes (if Cox was knocked out cold it would have come back the same way) because what we're determining in the first instance is whether it's a genuine spoiling attempt or whether it's a careless spoiling attempt.

“If it had been careless and determined that way, then there would have been an impact rating.

“But because it was not graded as careless, the impact was irrelevant, so it didn't matter whether he brushed him.

“The key aspect here is it was not careless in our view and therefore impact is irrelevant.”

Is Harley Reid’s crowd gesture under the MRO’s remit?

“No, it's handled by football,” Christian said.

“I do have a provision in fixed financials for obscene gestures, but I think what the AFL do really well is they go to Harley Reid and go to West Coast and try and understand a little bit about the why and understand the background.

“As I say, this is not my portfolio, but the AFL has issued a please explain … it’s more about, ‘What’s your perspective of this? What’s your story?’.

“That'll come back from Harley, it'll come back from West Coast and then the AFL through the football department will make a call on whether those reasons are justified and how that looks in terms of a potential sanction.”

How did Dangerfield end up with a fine and not a suspension for his errant elbow on Ryan Byrnes?

“In this particular incident, Patrick raised his right arm,” Christian said.

“Again, the first area to consider is the conduct. Was this careless? Was it intentional?

“What we've certainly got from the Tribunal in recent seasons is that when a player raises an arm and it hits the victim's shoulder … the Tribunal determines it as careless because that (the shoulder) was the first point of impact rather than high or the head region or neck … so it was graded careless.

“As it was graded careless, we then go to the next stage of where the contact occurred, and despite it coming off the shoulder, there was still enough force for high contact to grade it as high.

“Then the determining factor was about impact and a number of things come into play with impact. First is the visual look of it. Second, is a medical report, which we get access to obviously to look at and examine. The third is the player's reaction.

“None of those things again in themselves are definitive, but taking all those things together, it was assessed that the impact was low.”

Listen to Christian’s full chat with Gerard Whateley below: