Jim SpearsWhat do you do with an extra player?
April 29th 2008 09:36
So Syndey had an extra player on the field during their draw with North Melbourne on the weekend. But what do we do about it? Clearly, there has been a contravention of the rules, and one which may well have cost the Kangaroos two points. The player who was supposed to go off, Darren Jolly, played a part in Syndey grabbing the crucial point late in the game which secured a draw. This seems a clear-cut case of an unfair advantage leading to a change in the outcome of a match. As far as a penalty is concerned, there has been talk of a fine or the loss of the two points. If a fine were imposed, as some have quite rightly pointed out, I'm sure some teams would be willing to pay if it meant, for example, a place in the finals. Thus, awarding the two points to North Melbourne seems like the only fair outcome in this case. However, what would occur if we, as Immanuel Kant suggests, were to will that our action be universal law?
If it were to be a rule that having an extra player on the field automatically resulted in forfeiting the points, it may lead to some rather unacceptable outcomes. Consider, for example, if the same thing had occured in another of last weekends games: Brisbane v. Melbourne. Brisbane clearly won the game by 50-odd points, and there was absolutely no doubt about the result. It would hardly be fair - if Brisbane had a nineteenth player on the field for 30 seconds - for them to lose the points: the chances that the additional player would have changed the result are negligible. So what would a nineteenth player have to do, or how long would he have to be on the field for it to be considered that the hypothetical Brisbane had received an unfair advantage? To put it another way, how close does the game have to be for an extra player to result in points being forfeited?
If we agree that the Sydney v. North game is a prototypical case where one team has clearly gained an unfair advantage, and that in other situations it would be ridiculous for a team to lose points for what might have been an innocent and inconsequential mistake, how are we to deal with situations such as this? What if the offence occurs very early in the game, making it difficult to gauge the real implications of the infringement (a bit like the butterfly effect)? I suppose the statisticians could be called for to develop something like the Duckworth-Lewis system to calculate, on the basis of the duration of the infringement, the closeness of the game and the direct effect of the player(s) in question, whether the result is likely to have changed. Perhaps this is the best that can be done given that strong legislation in either direction is likely to lead to undesirable outcomes, and a fine seems hardly sufficient. I don't pretend to have any answers to these questions, but it's certainly an interesting conundrum.
If it were to be a rule that having an extra player on the field automatically resulted in forfeiting the points, it may lead to some rather unacceptable outcomes. Consider, for example, if the same thing had occured in another of last weekends games: Brisbane v. Melbourne. Brisbane clearly won the game by 50-odd points, and there was absolutely no doubt about the result. It would hardly be fair - if Brisbane had a nineteenth player on the field for 30 seconds - for them to lose the points: the chances that the additional player would have changed the result are negligible. So what would a nineteenth player have to do, or how long would he have to be on the field for it to be considered that the hypothetical Brisbane had received an unfair advantage? To put it another way, how close does the game have to be for an extra player to result in points being forfeited?
If we agree that the Sydney v. North game is a prototypical case where one team has clearly gained an unfair advantage, and that in other situations it would be ridiculous for a team to lose points for what might have been an innocent and inconsequential mistake, how are we to deal with situations such as this? What if the offence occurs very early in the game, making it difficult to gauge the real implications of the infringement (a bit like the butterfly effect)? I suppose the statisticians could be called for to develop something like the Duckworth-Lewis system to calculate, on the basis of the duration of the infringement, the closeness of the game and the direct effect of the player(s) in question, whether the result is likely to have changed. Perhaps this is the best that can be done given that strong legislation in either direction is likely to lead to undesirable outcomes, and a fine seems hardly sufficient. I don't pretend to have any answers to these questions, but it's certainly an interesting conundrum.
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