"Good People Do Bad Things" - Assessing The Andrew Gaff Situation

Within the span of two hours, West Coast's Andrew Gaff went from being talked about as one of a handful of favourites to take home the AFL's most prestigious award, the Brownlow Medal, to someone who has had the AFL world talking for one act.

This one act not only cost him a chance to win 'Charlie' come September, but it's cost him eight weeks of football and possibly more. A chance to help the Eagles reach their first Grand Final since 2015 and a chance to help the Eagles reach for their first flag in 12 years. Make no mistake about it, Gaff is a very strong piece to the West Coast team and to have him out for the rest of the year is a remarkable blow.

Before we delve into the incident in full, let's highlight Gaff's 2018 season. Leading to their game against the Dockers on Sunday, he played every game and averaged a career-high 30.6 disposals, along with 5.2 marks, 3.8 inside 50s and 3.6 clearances per game – which is also a career-high. He's not a renowned contested possession winner – preferring to get all his possessions on the outside – but he's working harder on that aspect, averaging 8.8 contested possessions per game, last year he averaged just over 7 per game.

In 12 of those games, he recorded 30 disposals or more, which shows his consistency to not just get the ball, but he often uses it effectively. There's no doubt that he is amongst the game's best outside midfielders today, but the thing is, he is working on his deficiency that is lack of contested ball that is reserved for the likes of Matt Priddis and Sam Mitchell – both of whom were team mates at the Eagles last year.

Great players work on their deficiencies, and Gaff – whether you want to call him out on winning cheap possessions on the wing or not – is still a very good player and by the end of his career, I'd like to think we'd say that Gaff was a terrific player to put on the wing. He was an All-Australian in 2015 and it was looking like he was going to be a two-time All-Australian at the end of this season, given what he has produced – it's all up in the air as of this moment.

Which now brings me to the incident that got one Andrew Gaff a mammoth suspension handed down by the AFL Tribunal.

Midway through the third quarter of the 48th Western Derby – the latest instalment of the West Coast/Fremantle rivalry, we saw a young Andrew Brayshaw – 18 years of age and in just the 17th game in his debut season – shadow Gaff along the wing and as Brayshaw attempted to niggle, that was when Gaff swung a fist which unfortunately collected the jaw of his opponent and laid him out on the Optus Stadium turf momentarily.

The damage was massive as Brayshaw suffered a broken jaw, as well four teeth that have were caved in. There is an image of the young Fremantle player in the aftermath of the incident as he was being carted off to hospital – I won't show it on here – but it was pretty graphic and it was painfully obvious that it was not simply a tap on the chin and that there was some significant damage to his jaw. Furthermore, it was revealed that he would be unable to eat solids for up to a month.

For those of you believing that the hit was that of a 'King-hit', I advise you to choose your words again. A definition of a king-hit is to knock someone out so sudden and so unexpectedly. Usually it happens when the person who is hit has his back towards the person swinging the punch. On this instance, Brayshaw and Gaff were pretty much face-to-face, but that doesn't make it any more or less wrong – what Andrew Gaff did was simply inexcusable.

Not only was it inexcusable, but it's also very unlike him to commit something like that. Now I can't say I know Andrew Gaff the person, but if you look at his past, you'll see that he has done nothing of the sort in years gone by. Not in the TAC Cup when he was roaming around for the Oakleigh Chargers, not when he was a young teenager finding his way for the Eagles in the early 2010s or in recent years. The facts will state that Andrew Gaff is a good man.

Ross Lyon mentioned in the press conference on Sunday that the incident drew similar comparisons to the 'Barry Hall incident' back in 2008. For those relatively new to the game that is AFL, Barry Hall was key forward for the Swans back in 2008, and he received a seven-week ban for punching West Coast's Brent Staker in the jaw, knocking him out cold.

The comparison sounds good in theory, but there is one big flaw in the comparison. Whilst Andrew Gaff has had no prior history in terms of being a bad man, Barry Hall – as good a player as he has been throughout his career for Sydney, St. Kilda and the Western Bulldogs – has always had a penchant for being a thug off the ball. The incident with Staker over a decade ago was just one in a reasonable list of wrongdoings Mr. Hall has committed over his 17 seasons with the AFL.

Gaff said after the game that he felt incredibly sick about that moment and has apologised numerous times to the Brayshaw's since the game and even when he was targeted by Michael Johnson and Luke Ryan during play, it is really nice to see coach Adam Simpson throw his support around Gaff. He mentioned in the press conference that he didn't believe that Gaff intended to punch Brayshaw in the jaw and was aiming for the chest – as so many players often do in the modern-day AFL. This just happened to go so very, very wrong.

Adam Simpson would know Andrew Gaff better than most media personalities, so it would sound wise to believe that. But the fact still remains that the fist that Gaff swung connected with his jaw. Unsuprisingly, he will miss the remainder of the season, not that it will do Fremantle a world of good, they will not be playing in the Finals this year, but it does rob Andrew Brayshaw of a well-deserved Rising Star nomination.

West Coast CEO Trevor Nisbett made a pretty massive claim on Monday that Andrew Gaff played Golf with both Andrew and Hamish Brayshaw – who also plays at West Coast – just five days before the game. Now since that has been on the record, it has been knocked down by several people. Matthew Pavlich – a legend at the Dockers – claimed that the pair never met for Golf and it was later confirmed that this never happened – which does pose the question in why the hell was it brought up in the first place?

This is undoubtedly the biggest talking point of the round, and it's a shame it's this major incident when you consider the fact that we had five games decided by less than a kick, which is actually something that has never been done before in the history of this competition. The Tribunal handed down an eight-match suspension for Gaff, making it the equal the biggest suspension in this century of football.

The other incident that I speak of is the case of Dean Solomon, who was pressed with an eight-week ban for elbowing Cameron Ling back in 2008. That resulted in Ling receiving broken cheekbones and a fractured eye socket. Imagine what that would've got in today's AFL. I can guarantee you it would've resulted in a similar punishment, maybe even worse.

Did the punishment fit the crime? In my eyes – Absolutely.

It doesn't matter who you are and what your history was, it was still a very poor act and it would be hard for anyone to seriously defend it. AFL's legal counsel Jeff Gleeson told the AFL website after the suspension was handed down that:

“Good people do bad things. It doesn't make them bad people. But the jury's responsibility is to punish the act, not just the person, and the act is very bad.”

Firstly, well done to the tribunal for handing down a lengthy suspension. I believe that eight weeks was definitely the right call and the AFL needed to put everyone on notice – they cannot and should not tolerate behaviour like this – regardless of whether it was intentional or not. Even if the Eagles do get straight to the Grand Final, he will still miss at least the first game heading into the 2019 season – and even then, we don't know if Andrew Gaff will be in a West Coast uniform next year. After all he is a free agent and there have been links back to his home state of Victoria.

Secondly, Gleeson's assessment on Gaff is I think spot on. Even great blokes are susceptible to making big mistakes like this sometimes. However I can understand why Fremantle fans aren't so quick to forgive him, and I can understand claims and opinions that 'He is a dog bloke' and that 'he should be charged for assault'. Whilst I can agree that what he's done was a horrible thing, it's hard to forget sometimes that even with something as egregious as this, he is still only human.

He's already made it known that he is sick thinking about that moment, and I can guarantee if he could have that moment again, he'd do it very differently. I can't imagine what his parents would be going through. Having to read all the abuse and negativity coming his way. It could be worse for all we know. Gaff has been on the record to say that this whole ordeal had been the toughest 48 hours of his life.

Also a a lot of kudos has to go to the Brayshaw's for how they have conducted themselves throughout all of this. Mark – who is the father of Andrew, as well as Melbourne's Angus and West Coast's Hamish – has stated on Tuesday night after the tribunal hearing that he has a great amount of sympathy for what Gaff has gone through the past few days and he is absolutely convinced that it was meant to be a whack in the chest.

It is so easy and understandable to go the other way and demand that Gaff be charged and all the other stuff that does come with it, but the amount of empathy and compassion he has for others was on full display.

So now that all of that is behind us all, I just hope we can get back to the footy. This man has copped his fair whack – but I hope people don't judge his career and his life on this one particular act. There's nothing about him that says he's a thug or a dirty player and whilst I don't expect fans to forgive him straightaway, I'll be counting on people to remember Andrew Gaff when he retires as a champion of our game – not someone in the same category as Barry Hall in regards to taking cheap shots off the ball.

It's time to move on now.

#2018 #AFL #AndrewGaff #AlexDocherty #WestCoastEagles #AndrewBrayshaw #FremantleDockers