On Friday night the Melbourne Demons were playing the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League when Tomas Bugg punched Callum Mills, one of the brightest young stars in the game, and knocked him unconscious.
Why an Aussie Rules player was able to punch an opponent unconscious in front of refs and never get ejected
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
The jab came at the beginning of the first quarter, with over an hour left to play. Mills was unable to return after being diagnosed with a concussion, but Bugg was able to take advantage of a gap in AFL rules and keep playing. This is because there’s no mechanism in the game to eject a player, no matter the incident.
It has sparked controversy in Australia as fans and analysts alike are debating how the game should move forward. Bugg will face a disciplinary tribunal and definitely be suspended for the punch, but nothing happened on the field on Friday. Ultimately Sydney went on to win by 35 points, despite losing Mills. However, the punch could have had a major impact on the game.
The debate is whether referees should have the power to eject players, given the possibility of a wrong call leading to a significant disadvantage. It’s a fair concern that other sports have dealt with, but the flip side is incidents like the one Friday night, where a player is punched unconscious and his team is down a player — all while the puncher is able to keep playing. That is ridiculous.
Ejections exist in lower levels of Aussie Rules, and it remains to be seen whether the AFL will adopt this as a response to the uproar over the punch.
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