Staging Fines and Slow Starts: The MRO Strikes Again in Finals Week

Three charges out of one semi-final between Brisbane and Adelaide, and I’ll be honest, I read the release with the weary calm of a bloke who’s spent two decades getting texts from mates going “mate, have you seen the tribunal news.” Two Lions pinged for staging, a Crow facing what could be a delayed start to his 2025, and me sitting here thinking: welcome to my world, fellas.

For those who came in late, I follow Essendon. We don’t just interact with the Match Review Officer, we’ve got a standing appointment. So when I see “staging” charges land on a couple of Brisbane players fresh off a famous win, I don’t feel schadenfreude so much as recognition. It’s like running into someone at your specialist’s waiting room. Oh, you’re here too? Small world.

What actually happened in the staging calls

The two Lions in question were both charged over incidents where the MRO reckons they exaggerated contact to try and con a free kick or a 50-metre penalty out of the umpires. Now I want to be careful here, because “staging” is one of those charges that gets people fizzing on talkback before anyone’s actually explained what the tribunal process even involves. These aren’t criminal convictions, they’re fines, the AFL’s way of saying “mate, dial it back,” and both players will reportedly cop the financial hit without it costing them a Saturday.

Do I think staging deserves harsher treatment than a slap on the wrist? Genuinely, I go back and forth. On one hand, nobody wants footy turning into soccer, where blokes hit the deck like they’ve been tazered over a light shoulder brush. On the other hand, professional sport at this level is a contest for every inch, and players have always tried to sell contact to the umpire — that’s not new, that’s just competitive instinct dialled up under finals pressure. The MRO clearly saw enough in vision to charge both, and fair enough, that’s their job. I just reckon fans need to remember a fine isn’t the club being dragged through the mud, it’s a pretty routine bit of MRO housekeeping.

The Crow copping the harder end of it

The bigger story out of Adelaide’s camp is the player facing a delayed start to the new season. Depending on how the grading lands and whether he challenges it, we’re talking about a suspension that could bleed into next year given how late in the finals this has all happened. That’s the sting with September incidents — there’s no next home-and-away round to serve the time against, so blokes can carry it over the summer and into round one, which is about the least fun way to start a pre-season.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend the incident itself was nothing, because I haven’t seen every angle and neither has anyone reading this before the Tribunal’s had its say if it goes that far. What I will say is that Adelaide fans should brace for the fact that these things almost always take longer to resolve than anyone wants, and the club’s job now is just to manage it calmly rather than get the pitchforks out on social media. Every fanbase has been here. Every single one.

Why Essendon fans have basically got a PhD in this stuff

I say this with love and considerable scar tissue: my club has had more encounters with the tribunal system than most clubs have had finals appearances this decade. We’ve had the fines, the bans, the whole saga that shall not be named again because I’m still not sure my therapist bills that separately. So when people ask me why I’ve got such a measured take on staging charges and suspension gradings, it’s because I’ve lived through the panic, the outrage, the appeals, the reduced-on-appeal sagas, all of it. You develop a bit of a poker face.

What I’ve learned watching Essendon go through the wringer is that the process is slow, often frustrating, occasionally inconsistent from one week to the next, but it does eventually spit out an outcome. Fans want instant justice and clean narratives. The MRO gives you neither. It gives you gradings, contests, sometimes an early plea for a reduced sanction, and a lot of grey area in between.

The bigger picture for finals footy

Here’s my actual gripe, and it’s not really about Brisbane or Adelaide specifically. It’s that finals footy amplifies everything. A borderline bump in round 4 gets a fine and nobody blinks. The same incident in a semi-final becomes headline news because the stakes are higher and the vision gets replayed on a loop by every code on telly. I don’t think that’s wrong exactly, finals matter more, but it does mean players are under the pump to be squeaky clean in the very weeks when the adrenaline and desperation are at their highest. That’s a tough ask.

Staging charges in particular are a symptom of blokes playing every percentage in a knockout game. You’re down in a semi, the game’s on the line, and if throwing your head back after minimal contact might get your side a shot on goal, plenty of players are going to take that gamble, rightly or wrongly. I don’t love it, but I understand the incentive completely.

What Brisbane and Adelaide do next

For the Lions, this is genuinely minor. Fines, no suspensions reported, and they roll on into the next stage of the finals with barely a headache. Good luck to them, genuinely, it’s been a cracking finals series and nobody’s season should be defined by a staging charge.

For Adelaide, it’s a bit murkier and depends entirely on how the grading process plays out and whether there’s an appeal. If the ban does eat into round one next year, that’s a genuine blow to the Crows’ start to the season, and it’s the kind of thing that changes team selection and momentum in ways that ripple further than people expect. I’ve watched Essendon lose blokes to suspension at the worst possible time and it throws your whole structure out for weeks.

The Riggsy verdict

Look, none of this is the end of the world for either club. Staging fines are footy’s version of a parking ticket, annoying but you pay it and move on. The suspension question is more serious for Adelaide’s planning, but even that will get sorted through the process, appealed or accepted, and life goes on.

My advice to both fanbases, as someone who has genuinely seen it all: don’t let the MRO news define your whole week. Save the outrage for the stuff that actually costs you the flag. Trust me on this one, we’ve got the receipts down at Essendon and we’re still here, still turning up, still occasionally getting an unexpected letter from the AFL that ruins a perfectly good Tuesday.