Almanac Footy: The Bump
The Bump
It’s the last Tuesday training night of the year. Easy rain has cleared into something perfect for football. The lights go on automatically, on the small rise behind the three-street township, but the coach has given us the night off. One final reward for the rusted on. Tuesday’s regulars. We ease down the empty road, one-by-one, to the pub for our regular post-training countery.
I’m the first to arrive via the old, dead-end track that was once the road where the old wooden bridge used to stand.
I’m first into the pub. The front bar feels like stepping into the hot pool during winter, always. Small, lots of wood, a ripper firepot glowing hot, giving off real heat, a small spattering of woolly locals. Dairy farmers, spud growers.
Fox Footy is on the telly, they’re replaying Dan Houston’s shirtfront of Izak Rankine. The volume’s down, thank fuck, but they’re clearly getting orgasmic, showing it from every angle. At one stage it gets replayed five times in under 30 seconds. Some of the panel would be tut-tutting, others lamenting days of yore, but, yeah, mostly tut-tutting. It’s their job to be sour.
“Good hit,” I say. “It doesn’t touch the head.”
Maybe they’ll find an angle, a freeze-frame, when head and shoulder are touching, trial by electronics, by slow-mo and armchair warriors. This game of speed and humans.
“Straight down the middle,” I say, as they replay it yet again, then, I try to ignore it.
But they keep playing the bastard thing, time and again, as my teammates come in. Stew, at 38, the hardest player in the district for the last two decades, who’s so tough he’s never hit anyone. Not once. 24 years without violence. Just a monster at the ball, fearless under it. The perfect bush footballer.
“Good hit,” he says, as the shirtfront greets him.
Sammy follows him. 22-23 years-old, maybe younger? I dunno. Something. I have never worshiped a player more. He’s all skills, judgement. Not that fast, just 100% natural footballer, and more so natural person. The very first thing he did when he came to our club is pick up a pair of tongs on the barbie for the juniors. You can’t buy that.
Sammy Tongs, we now call him.
Nothing but silk, never even bumped somebody.
Huston and Rankine are there, in his vision, looming over the barman. God, they just keep playing it! It’s 9/11 all over again. The plane going into the building, into the building, into the building. Some perverse lust for something they say horrifies them.
The segment must be on loop. They do the five replays in under 30 seconds again.
“Fair bump,” Sam says. “Why don’t they just leave that stuff alone? It shits me.”
Jack, the club everyman comes in. The paperwork behind the power, the recruiter, the you name it.
Houston and Rankine greet him.
By now everybody’s in. The front bar, in a quiet, dark town on a dead winter’s Tuesday, has a ripper, lazy crush to it. Big blokes eating parmas.
“Good bump,” says Jack, as he makes his way under it. “Didn’t get his head. Nothing wrong with it.”
That’s four generations of a bizarre echo of a greeting. People who play the game, barely a report between us.
Jack’s cluey. He sees everyone agrees, and has not harped on about it, because they all know it’s a lost battle. There’s no tales of glory or thuggery. No “I remember when”, no clichés.
Just awkward, silent resignation.
We don’t even want to speculate on the weeks involved. We’re a down-to-earth bush footy club. There are local footy stories to be told over pots and tucker. The death of something we love is too morbid.
Tommy, a dairy farmer, comes in from having a smoke as it’s played one more time.
“What was wrong with that?”
An echo, without a doubt, heard in Tassie snow, tropical heat, open walled pubs in the WA Outback. Amateurs, bush professionals, players. “Good hit”, bouncing across the nation.
Read more from Matt Zurbo HERE
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Not my reading of the incident Old Dog. Firstly, Houston’s “hip & shoulder” had a fair bit of late hit “make him earn it” to my eye. Rankine has his eyes on the ball coming over his shoulder to mark it, and Houston is focussed only on Rankine and not the ball. Houston knows he is going to arrive just after the ball.
For all your mates’ protestations about “fair bump” the fact is that the top of Houston’s shoulder hits Rankine’s chin and KO’s him resulting in a concussion. This is the problem of a big bloke hitting a little bloke. 95% of Houston’s hit is a fair bump but his shoulder connects with the head.
Not something we want to see in the game and an entirely foreseeable risk for the player choosing to bump. I recall Nic Nait getting rubbed out a couple of times for hitting little blokes with “fair” bumps/tackles and his altering his technique as a result. 200cm steam trains can’t hit stationary platforms front on without making high contact.
If you allow the Houston hit you are tacitly accepting the Frawley/Tuck/Greg Williams/Sean Smith walking zombie CTE situation that destroys lives. No sport is worth that.
Ditto PB – the other vital point is concussion the repercussions and litigation the game changes or dies
It wasn’t a fair bump as a v experienced umpire I am still stunned that a report for charging and a free kick wasn’t paid – Charging re unreasonable and unnecessary force for mine just so blatant and hearing bloody –
Razor Ray on SEN continue to show he literally doesn’t understand the laws of the game was horrendous
Like Malcolm, I believe Houston charged and firstly should have been reported for that. Why a free and 50 metre wasn’t paid is beyond my pea brain.
You’re right, Matt. Fair bump echoed around the country. The way we understand the game is changing quickly, and needs to if we want it to survive.
Conflicts declared, I hate Port and like the Crows – the former more than the latter (if we want to talk true Port Adelaide traditions, none more so than taking out the opposition’s best player).
It’s really hard at real time to tell if contact is made with the head, but in the fullness of angles it was. The evidence also in Rankine going down, legs and feet stiff, like a knocked-out fighter before his head hits the ground. That is traumatic brain injury in real time.
The bump is dead, people will miss it.
Can picture all of this…. Couldn’t picture the bump ever becoming an outcast of our game. Great read Zurbs and unfortunately it’s the changing of our game that has been influenced by those who’ve had health issues post footy career…. Or is that just called getting old? There’s plenty of ex footballers still kicking that were as tough as old boots,gave their all, bashed crashed and been targeted throughout decorated careers , it’s the bloody game, the reason you play at 100% is to give 100% body mind and soul and you know that heading out shoulder to shoulder, but unfortunately again legalities come into play in the ‘main event’ the AFL has become. How many shepherds have you applauded in the last 10 yrs? = disgusting, it’s a team game. That’s for another time… coz it’s another skill disappearing too
I hear ya, Perma! As the piece siad, this is from the people playing the game, more so than those cool and calmly watching it. We know it’s inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we can’t rage against the dying light. If all fear is taken from the game, so is all courage.
I’m on your side, Matt, along with all the other judges mentioned in your article. This will get me into trouble but, pedantry has its own rewards, Peter B, Rankine was not going to “mark” the ball, it was punched, not kicked. I would not class Houston as a “big bloke” either, the PAFC website lists him at 186cms., granted bigger than Rankine, whose height I cannot find as my computer will not get the AFC website… As for Malcolm Ashwood, there were 4 umpires on the field, one of whom is called Chamberlain, who I always thought was a problem when umpiring PAFC games, not one of them paid a free kick, made a report or gave 50 metres. I understand all the legal mess, but at what point do the lawyers start umpiring the game on weeknights? Always enjoy your stuff, Old Dog, live long and prosper.
I, for some reason feel very strongly about this incident, and the media ‘pile on’ it generated. I was at the game, in level 3 Chappell stand. I was with a fellow Crows good mate and we had a substantial disagreement there AND then. Emotions were already high around us. We couldn’t even agree to differ at the time. The fact that Rankine had the ball was my first point. Now after seeing some replays, not as many as Old Dog and his fellow punters did, and some stills in the local rag the following day, I was even more convinced that Houston did little wrong. I was very much in the minority whenever the subject was raised in subsequent days.
1. Rankine had the ball
2. He wasn’t hit high
3. Houston didnt leave the ground
4. He also could have hit him harder
So, no surprise no free kick was paid in my view..
Now, the outcome is a separate issue. The fact the Rankine was concussed, and Houston elected to bump suggests to me that a penalty of some sort would be appropriate. FFS, he has been penalised as if it was a king hit, behind the play!!
Really? It was far from that. I am obviously in the minority, but I think Houston was hard done by.
Onya Bucko! Well said and thank you!
Thank you all! If we can’t agree to disagree, there’s no point in saying anything at all! x