This AFL round was supposed to be about rule changes.

At a windblown suburban ground in northern Melbourne six-six-six starting positions and giant novelty-sized goal squares were trialled. These are the remedies those eager to put their imprint on the game have prescribed for the ugly crowding and low scoring that had bedevilled the competition.

But five games on Friday night and Saturday decided by less than four points took the air out of the rule-change tyres. Not merely because of the close results, because of the engrossing contests that needed more regulations like the Master Chef judges needed more dessert.

Scuffles broke out after a tackle on Andrew Gaff (left) during the Round 20 match between the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers. ( AAP: Richard Wainwright )

Instead, the rule change that will be discussed ad nauseam on the game's exhaustive — and, as often, exhausting — 24/7 media platforms in coming days is an old chestnut, the send-off.

The cowardly punch by West Coast's Andrew Gaff that scattered Fremantle opponent Andrew Brayshaw's teeth across Perth Stadium like wedding confetti was a sickening moment for the game — even in a season when Aussie Rules hooligans have caused almost weekly embarrassment.

Loading

Brayshaw was taken to hospital in an ambulance with a suspected broken jaw. Gaff has an appointment with the tribunal. If he gets a suspension that allows him to play again this season he should buy a lottery ticket on the way home.

Gaff's third-quarter punch sent the game into a bizarre twilight. His continued presence on the field for some reason compelled the Eagles-dominated crowd to cheer the villain when, at best, an embarrassed silence was appropriate.

The standing ovation Gaff received when he went to the bench was a particularly abject expression of tribalism. If supporters can still find heroism in such an act of blatant thuggery — regardless of which guernsey the offender was wearing — then as fans we have not evolved as far as we would like to think.

Blinkered partisanship paralysing the senses

The AFL's Perth Derby and Adelaide Showdown are now the most bitter and boisterous of any of the AFL's rivalries. In comparison, the old suburban battles of the traditional Melbourne clubs are just frothy latte wars. In Australian sport only rugby league's State of Origin rivals the Derby and Showdown for parochial passion.

But such blinkered partisanship can paralyse the senses. Like those of the Perth-based commentators who trod carefully around Gaff's guilt, instead victim-blaming the Dockers for their instinctive reaction which was to make Gaff's life as miserable as possible when he was on the field.

The same commentators defended the West Coast official who berated TV cameramen while filming Eagles' star Nick Natanui at an airport after he had suffered a season-ending knee injury, an absurd overreaction for which the club very belatedly apologised.

West Coast is a big club in what can sometimes seem a very small town. So small, even the indefensible can be defended if it wears blue and gold.

But the most telling reaction to Gaff's moment of madness was not that of the crowd or the commentators, but that of Gaff himself. The crowd might have cheered when he came off the ground but he sat on the pine with his head buried in hands consumed by belated misgivings. The tears welled.

Gaff deserves no pity. Brayshaw is the one who will be eating his steaks through a straw for the next month or two.

But Gaff's reaction — the stark and very public moment of realisation of what he had done and the consequences he faces — was at least resonant of an age when such violent assaults are immediately condemned. Not celebrated on a commemorative highlights video as they were in the seventies and eighties.

West Coast's Andrew Gaff was a target for retribution from the Dockers following his punch to Andrew Brayshaw. ( AAP: Richard Wainwright )

Gaff was immediately aware his long-term absence could cost his team a premiership, himself a Brownlow Medal and perhaps a multi-million dollar contract; and — most of all you hope — that he had caused untold damage to Brayshaw's football psyche.

And yet Gaff kept returning to the field …

So when West Coast coach Adam Simpson went to the boundary to counsel Gaff, you assumed we had seen the last of him for the day. With the Eagles well in front, there was not even the most cynical motive to put the hard-running midfielder back on the field.

Yet Gaff played on, inciting retaliation from Fremantle players understandably shocked and distraught by the fate of their teammate Brayshaw.

Andrew Gaff's third quarter punch sent Sunday's game into a bizarre twilight. ( AAP: Richard Wainwright )

As Gaff made his tentative way around the field, a target painted on his back, the words of the late Ray "Slug" Jordan during an infamous VFL reserves game in the 1980s when Collingwood's John Bourke assaulted an umpire came to mind: "Get the boy off!"

Yet, bizarrely, the Eagles kept sending Gaff back on, the Eagles' fans continued their inappropriate cheering and the game descended into bleak farce.

So should there be a rule that would have mandated Gaff's dismissal? The argument has boiled in the AFL for years.

The naysayers believe the red card is too punitive, the proponents argue — with more cause after Sunday— the victim deserves instant justice. Not the teams who profit from a subsequent suspension.

But, perversely, perhaps the best case for an AFL send-off rule on Sunday was the reaction of the West Coast fans.

A villain was hailed as a hero even as he was racked with remorse. This was the most hideous noise of affirmation.