Barry Hall

Barry Hall Gets 7 Weeks

Barry Hall has been suspended for seven weeks for striking Brent Staker in the Sydney Swans match against the West Coast Eagles at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.

Video seems to show Hall having at least one other unsuccessful attempt to land a meaningful blow on Staker a few seconds before the assault that earned him this suspension, however media and fans seem divided over whether Hall's punch was an out-of-character one-off incident or another example of a prolonged career of thuggery.

There are enough previous examples to support the latter, with Hall's striking charge this week bringing him a total of 12 tribunal appearances for 7 convictions and a total of 23 weeks' suspensions.

Two other aspects to the debate are whether a player's suspensions should only take effect once he has recovered from injury, and whether deliberate acts of violence on the field should resuilt in removal from the field. If a player is prepared to commit such severe unlawful acts to try to gain an advantage for his team (and/or create a disadvantage to his opposition), should the logical move be immediate removal from the field of the offending player himself.

In Hall's defence, his counsel Terry Forrest, QC, acknowledged that this was a serious case of striking but not a "worst case scenario". According to the AFL's guidelines, kicking and charging are worse offences than striking.  Part of Halls' representation highlighted that Staker, although concussed by Hall, suffered "relatively slight" injuries.

Among those unconvinced by Hall's explanation of events was AFL counsel Jeff Gleeson, SC. He described the punch as violent and dangerous, and questioned how Hall, a former boxer, could strike someone in the face with a full shoulder rotation and not expect to cause severe damage.

Hall benefited from pleading guilty, with a sentencing discount of 25 per cent.