The tweet that got North Melbourne's Jy Simpkin cleared at AFL tribunal

Mick Stirling

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The tweet that got North Melbourne's Jy Simpkin cleared at AFL tribunal image

How big a part does social media play in the modern AFL environment?

Well, apart from giving fans a forum to vent their bitterness over the weekend’s results, it also seems to have moved into affecting in the actual mechanics of the system, getting North Melbourne’s Jy Simpkin off a two-match ban for bumping Brisbane Lion Allen Christensen.

On the flip side, Alex Rance’s dive probably wouldn’t have got as far as the Sunday morning footy shows if not for Twitter outrage from fans with a phone and a less than Rance-like key defender in their own team.

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In an unprecedented situation, the Kangaroos actually took a tweet from fan @giantroo and used it as evidence in Simpkin’s tribunal appeal on Tuesday night.

The post included 11 screen grabs that showed Simpkin reaching for the loose ball until the very last moment before he collided with Christensen, proving his intent was the footy and not the man.



North Melbourne saw the tweet, originally posted on Monday, and based their case around it rather than relying on the slow-motion footage provided by the tribunal.

No doubt the successful outcome from @giantroo’s initiative will have AFL fans around the country flooding social media with their own ‘evidence’ in future cases, and it should be fun to see some of the photoshopped efforts that will inevitably come out.

Maybe three judges holding up scores for Rance?


 


 

Mick Stirling