Cascading blunders: AFL, Swans both in the wrong on Buddy case

The Lance Franklin case has been an unedifying spectacle for the game, the Swans and, not least, the AFL, even if it provided a measure of entertainment for the media and footy public.

The league’s lawyer Andrew Woods went well over the top in calling “Buddy’s” act “cowardly” - a rhetorical flourish that once upon a time would have been accepted as courtroom theatre, a QC not minding his Ps and Qs. The AFL had no choice butHad Franklin’s strike been more forceful, employed with a fully clenched fist and he’d floored Cotchin in the manner of Barry Hall on Brent Staker 15 years ago, then “cowardly” would have been a fair call. But he didn’t and it wasn’t.

Sydney’s advocate Duncan Miller, too, indulged in excessive lawyerly language when he jested that Cotchin should be invited to the Logies instead of the Brownlow, essentially suggesting that Cotchin was staging to extract a free. It made for a colourful evening at the tribunal, where the advocates usually use more muted or coded language.

As the Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham went on the attack, holding the AFL responsible for the hyperbolic words of their counsel, the AFL not only apologised to Buddy but delivered a small swipe - a little less forceful than Franklin’s second crack at Cotchin - to Sydney’s advocate Miller by damning both lawyers. “Rhetorical flourishes of the nature used by both counsel last night should not be part of the tribunal process.

JakeNiallTHEAGE It was cowardly Plain & simple

JakeNiallTHEAGE And an apology was issued.... Next

JakeNiallTHEAGE no. disagree. franklin was suspended and thats it. stop tring to make more out of it..

JakeNiallTHEAGE It wasn't over the top. You might say it was a colourful description at best, but it wasn't over the top.

JakeNiallTHEAGE

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