Recent events have shown there is still a fair bit of confusion among the football community around how the AFL’s Match Review Panel works.

In a bid to overcome this, I was asked by the AFL at the start of the year to sit in on the Match Review Panel for every round this year.

Like many things in life, once you grasp the nuances, what appears confusing becomes quite logical, with the possible exception of the show Lost.

Spending my weeks with Mark Fraser, Des Gleeson and Bryan Sheehan was incredibly insightful.

The Chairman, Mark, is a former AFL player and umpire. He insists on being called ‘Chair’ at all times by the other panel members. This seems to bother Des but not Bryan.

Des was a horse-racing steward for thirty years and is famous for his hat. He is very keen to introduce a new penalty where players can opt to carry extra weight sown into their jumpers for the next few games.

The more serious the penalty, the more weight.

Mark thinks this is the easily the dumbest idea he has ever heard and often says so. Bryan has no strong opinion either way on this idea. The last panel member, Bryan, is a former umpire. He often insists on walking around the room backwards while incidents are being discussed.

Following each round, the various reports and referrals are given to the Match Review Panel to examine and decide if there is a case to answer. This usually happens at Des’ place as at Bryan’s it often clashed with his wife’s book club and Mark’s place had a PlayStation 3, which was too distracting.

The week Modern Warfare 3 was released, Bryan confided, resulted in them quickly getting through the reports in ten minutes at 3am after a long night of killing each other.

The next step is to decide what to charge the player with. It’s well known that they assess the incident against three factors: Conduct (reckless, intentional or negligent), Impact (severe, high, medium or low) and Contact (high, to the groin or the body).

While I have promised not to discuss individual cases, the process usually begins when Des offers everyone a drink. Mark is a beer man, usually Carlton Draught, but Crown Lager on special occasions.

Des enjoys Scotch, with Laphroaig Single Malt his brand of choice and he drinks it like water. Bryan used to drink wine but found it hard to stay up so switched to Jagermeister and Red Bull, which he says makes him feel ‘like he’s twenty again’.

After a few drinks and often a pizza or fish ‘n’ chips, Mark will call everyone to order and lay out the details of the first case and the players involved. The incident will then be played from every angle in real time then in slow mo.

Des will then ask for the star signs of the players involved. While Des admits this doesn’t play into his official decision it does provide a deep insight into motive. As this season progressed Des got more into the Chinese Horoscope, which he believes is more accurate.

Next to speak up will usually be Bryan. This will often be an anecdote from his umpiring days which will go on for quite awhile, often appearing to link back to the current incident being discussed but never quite getting there.

Mark will usually wind him up by tactfully offering to fetch another Red Bull.

At this point. each panel member will have asked to see various angles again. Then they all discuss any of the factors that are contested. This is usually the moment that causes the most tension between panel members.

It usually begins with Des criticising Mark’s skills on the remote control. A typical exchange goes like this:

Des: Can you go back to the side angle?

Mark: This one?

Des: No. The side. You need to rewind.

Mark: This one?

Des: You’ve gone past it. Go forward…..now you’ve gone too far…..that’s it, play! Nooo! You’ve gone too far again.

Bryan usually steps in at this point and grabs the remote. I don’t know if it’s the Red Bull but Bryan can manipulate a remote. The evening then settles back to the routine grind of deciding if the reckless, severe blow is to the groin or not.

Most incidents are assessed fairly easily, but now and again one will spark intense disagreement. The debate is often heated and can go on for hours. Bryan’s numerous Jager Bombs will often result in him getting hyperactive and insisting on all three of them acting out the incident on the living room floor.

Des will try to present arguments that link horse racing analogies with the Chinese Zodiac. One particular anecdote about Might and Power and the year of the goat was particularly compelling.

It is usually at this point Mark suggests a new approach to break the impasse. In my time with them, this approach was the popular Milton Bradley game ‘Guess Who’ though before that scissors-paper-rock and hangman was used.

Mark said the only flaw they’d found with this process was Bryan’s tendency to choose Sam. Des told me that they once used two-up for the Anzac round, which I thought was very touching.

Once the last incident has been graded, the Match Review Panel have one last drink and polish off any leftovers before heading home.

I came away from my time with the Match Review Panel deeply impressed with the men involved and their decision-making process. On my last night with them, Bryan asked me how the article was coming along as we popped down to the shops to pick up the fish n chips.

“I think people will really understand why you make the decisions you do once they read it,” I told him.

“That’s all we can hope for,” he replied.