Nathan MottonHall broken wrist an unacceptable break
April 15th 2008 08:12
In what will prove to be the most un-talked about incident of the year, the AFL will today review the incident that saw Barry Hall break his wrist on a boundary-line advertising sign.
Hall had surgery on his wrist yesterday and is expected to miss at least six weeks for what would be a huge talking point, were it not for his earlier "brain explosion" on Saturday night.
Sydney coach Paul Roos descirbed the injury as "completely unacceptable" and believes that stadiums should take steps to prevent players colliding with fences.
The AFL said yesterday the stadium had the proper protocols in place, including an extra buffer zone between the boundary line and fences.
Is Jill Lindsay the only person in Australia who was actually pleased with Halls low blow?
The AFL's ground operations manager will speak with ANZ Stadium today to ensure her head will not be called for.
Amidst the hysteria that has surrounded the Hall incident, Hall's broken wrist has been all but forgotten about.
And it shouldn't have.
Minimum standards with stadiums were set up following an incident with Matthew Richardson in 2005, where Richo needed a knee reconstruction after stopping suddenly to avoid a fence at the SCG.
The AFL has set a minimum distance of 4m between boundary and fence, but the distance at Hall's incident was more than 5m.
But this is irrelevant, because at the end of the day, what's in place still doesn't work.
Clearly this protocol needs to fixed.
Further steps need to be taken to ensure these kinds of inexcusable accidents don't happen again.
Advertising signs are designed to be breakable. This needs to be looked at.
With 102 kilograms leading strongly towards a fence, the advertising cardboard surely needs to be more heavily padded, to minimise the damage.
Wouldn't that be safer than running through a piece of cardboard, and hitting a steel fence?
Hopefully Lindsay takes this matter seriously, and looks at implementing change.
She would no doubt consider herself a very lucky woman from the weekend.
Had Hall not cleaned up Staker, the unsatisfactory state of at least one stadiums buffer zone would be all over the back pages.
Hall had surgery on his wrist yesterday and is expected to miss at least six weeks for what would be a huge talking point, were it not for his earlier "brain explosion" on Saturday night.
Sydney coach Paul Roos descirbed the injury as "completely unacceptable" and believes that stadiums should take steps to prevent players colliding with fences.
The AFL said yesterday the stadium had the proper protocols in place, including an extra buffer zone between the boundary line and fences.
The AFL's ground operations manager will speak with ANZ Stadium today to ensure her head will not be called for.
Amidst the hysteria that has surrounded the Hall incident, Hall's broken wrist has been all but forgotten about.
And it shouldn't have.
Minimum standards with stadiums were set up following an incident with Matthew Richardson in 2005, where Richo needed a knee reconstruction after stopping suddenly to avoid a fence at the SCG.
The AFL has set a minimum distance of 4m between boundary and fence, but the distance at Hall's incident was more than 5m.
But this is irrelevant, because at the end of the day, what's in place still doesn't work.
Clearly this protocol needs to fixed.
Further steps need to be taken to ensure these kinds of inexcusable accidents don't happen again.
Advertising signs are designed to be breakable. This needs to be looked at.
With 102 kilograms leading strongly towards a fence, the advertising cardboard surely needs to be more heavily padded, to minimise the damage.
Hopefully Lindsay takes this matter seriously, and looks at implementing change.
She would no doubt consider herself a very lucky woman from the weekend.
Had Hall not cleaned up Staker, the unsatisfactory state of at least one stadiums buffer zone would be all over the back pages.
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