The wording on the AFL website frightens me a bit: "A player deemed to have reacted to contact in a way that may affect an umpire's decision, may incite a melee or is not in the spirit of the game will be hit with fines of up to $2400 for a third offence during the 2010 premiership season." By the letter of this law, a player who throws his arms out while being held can be reported - Schneider would have been reported in that incident that Saints fans are bitter about from the final quarter of the Grand Final. This wording would seem to cover what I would call "appealing" for free kicks as well as staging for them.
I'm also a bit worried about how this will be interpreted. A player leading hard for a mark does not need much contact to fall off balance, and the safest way to fall in such a circumstance typically involves a bit of flailing around. It always looks like diving. I can see teething problems and a lot of tedious debate about incidents next year.
I also have a major problem with the match review panel making the calls. Farce would reign in a scenario where the umpire is fooled by a diver, pays a free kick that wins a team the game, only to have the match review panel turn around and fine the diving player. Personally, I would only want to see a player penalised for staging a free kick if the stage was so obvious that the onfield umpire could pick it out - all reports to come for the field, and the match review panel to adjudicate, but never to find more free kicks.
Ultmately, I expect the interpretation to be much more liberal than the wording of the law. I expect only the most obvious ones to be penalised. Otherwise there will be way too many cases.
To be perfectly honest, though, I'm not sure what's driving this. I thought umpires had a very good year with respect to identifying when a free kick was staged. I didn't perceive any particular increase in staging. This whole thing seems like a big can of worms to me.
On the plus side, I'm glad to see two tribunal-related injustices against Carlton players have been closed. The separation of eye-gouging from non-eye related contact to the face is an obvious call: attacking the eyes is at least twice as bad as attacking other parts of the face - I doubt anyone would disagree with that - and the three weeks that Judd received for not eye-gouging was manifestly excessive, so that's a good move. As for the other, I don't know how the tribunal came to have jurisdiction over internal practice matches to begin with. Truly farcical.
