Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\nAdelaide CEO Tim Silvers said the possibility of playing in the Grand Final, rather than knowing his season is over, was a \u201ccarrot\u201d for Rankine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of Izak the individual, I think it\u2019s nice that there\u2019s a carrot for him, and that it means his season\u2019s potentially not over. I think that is good for his mental health,\u201d Silvers said.<\/p>\n
The AFL said there were \u201ccompelling medical submissions\u201d which contributed to the decision to reduce the ban.<\/p>\n
According to the Herald Sun\u2019s Jon Ralph, the Crows pointed to previous medical treatment for Rankine\u2019s mental health, including him being \u201ctriggered\u201d by Dan Houston referencing his bump which knocked Rankine out during the late-season 2024 Showdown against Port Adelaide in their defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Crows\u2019 submission detailed not only the club\u2019s fears for his mental health, but also specific circumstances dating back to Gold Coast and his medical treatment there, and how that potentially instructed his response,\u201d Ralph said on Fox Footy\u2019s Thursday night pre-game coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they are aware that that will be seen to be playing the mental health card, but they spoke about specific and very complex aspects of his diagnosis, and could potentially have triggered his response in uttering that slur.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo Rankine takes some time away from the football club over the weekend, then will return to apologise to the AFLW and AFL team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon addresses Rankine’s 4-game ban | 09:23<\/p>\n
But Australian Football Hall of Fame legend Jason Dunstall could not understand how Rankine\u2019s mental health was a good enough reason to reduce his suspension by a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m about as confused as I could possibly be,\u201d Dunstall said on Fox Footy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI regard myself as at least a semi-intelligent man. I don\u2019t know how compelling medical evidence gets you from five weeks down to four, and if we\u2019re talking about mental health, by what metric, measurement scale are we saying that equates to one week. I don\u2019t understand, I\u2019m confused. Can someone explain it to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph attempted to do so, saying: \u201cSo what Adelaide would say is that there were certain triggers in regards to this, that he was triggered because being knocked out by Dan Houston last winter last year, that was one of the factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey would say that it\u2019s not just the mental health card, and they would believe that it\u2019s not setting a worry. I think maybe that\u2019s what worries you (Dunstall). Any player who is now suspended for four or six or eight weeks says, look, I\u2019m battling with my mental health, and I wonder what this might do for me, and so give me a discount on that penalty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Adelaide) would say that there are very specific incidences here. And of course, they need to respect his confidentiality, and so there are potentially things in his past there that have instructed what he\u2019s done here.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you worry Jason about that precedent, though, that every player now in a situation where they might miss a final says, okay, my mental health will be impacted. I need a discount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Dunstall doesn’t understand the Izak Rankine ruling.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Dunstall replied: \u201cThe problem is we don\u2019t get it properly explained to us. So there are triggers because you got knocked out last time. That\u2019s a trigger, and I\u2019m not having a go at Izak Rankine; I\u2019m having a go at this case and the way it\u2019s gone from five weeks to four weeks based on supposed compelling medical evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re hearing there are triggers that prompted a response, I just don\u2019t get it, and I can\u2019t comprehend how the fact that he got knocked out last time they played has anything to do with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue is they\u2019re not idiots at AFL House. I\u2019ve got great respect for Andrew Dillon. He\u2019s a smart man as are the other people around him, but we\u2019re not getting all the information. We\u2019re just expected to take this as blind faith and say they\u2019ve made the right decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t do that because it doesn\u2019t make sense without all the relevant facts to understand why they\u2019ve decided to give a week off (the ban) to give him hope, perhaps, of playing in the Grand Final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunstall later suggested the league was \u201ca victim of their own wokeness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t want to offend anyone, they want to take every issue and every condition – and I would never downplay mental health, by any stretch of the imagination – but rules are rules,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t matter, if you transgress, you have to cop the punishment but they don\u2019t want to offend anyone and by doing so they\u2019ve offended everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The criticism of the AFL\u2019s decision has been almost unanimous.<\/p>\n
AFL 360 host Gerard Whateley declared on SEN it was \u201csuch a disappointing moment from a disappointing administration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Collingwood great Tony Shaw tweeted: \u201cThe compelling medical advice taken into account on Rankine plea? Izak is feeling sad that he stuffed up badly letting himself, teammates and club down. Well blow me down that deserves 1 week less? AFL incompetent, amateurish, laughable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former AFLW star Kate McCarthy said on Triple M, of the league\u2019s suggestion it has zero tolerance for homophobia: \u201cZero tolerance? I don\u2019t really think we\u2019ve seen zero tolerance play out this week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL legend Jason Dunstall is concerned with the league\u2019s decision-making after it was revealed Izak Rankine\u2019s ban for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-84879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}