Gary Ablett has had his suspension downgraded to a fine at the AFL Tribunal ... his charge of intentional conduct downgraded to careless.

Are we surprised? Not at all. Are we outraged? We should be.

This reeks of one rule for one and another for everyone else.

Players who lift their forearms and hit other players in the head are guilty of intentional contact.

Everyone except Little Gaz.

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Camera Icon Geelong Cats player Gary Ablett Jr leaves the AFL tribunal after having his suspension overturned in Melbourne. Credit: AAPIMAGE

When Nat Fyfe clipped Collingwood’s Levi Greenwood last year he received a week’s suspension because he left the ground and hit Greenwood with a forearm to the head.

When Richmond’s Dylan Grimes clipped Collingwood’s Jamie Elliott in round two this year, he got a week because he left the ground and hit Elliott in the head with his forearm.

When Hawk James Cousins hit Carlton’s Sam Petrevski-Seton with a forearm to the head in round six this year he got a week, for much the same reasons as Fyfe last year and Grimes earlier this year.

So why is it so unthinkable to a liniment-sniffing, hero-worshipping industry that Ablett should get a week for the hit on Dylan Shiel in Geelong’s win over Essendon on Sunday.

By the time the weekly wrap of the football shows had been aired on Monday night, the “get Gaz off” campaign was in full swing. Cats coach Chris Scott reckoned Shiel was down for about two seconds. Actually it was 14 seconds before a stunned Shiel could stand up straight after the blow.

Others cited Ablett’s “exemplary” record (327 games before this) without suspension and called for a little-known and little-used clause in the AFL Tribunal rules to be invoked to get him off.

Play Video The Fremantle Dockers have decided not to appeal Nat Fyfe's one-week suspension. The West Australian Video The Fremantle Dockers have decided not to appeal Nat Fyfe's one-week suspension.

AFL match review officer Michael Christian made a mistake on the weekend.

But the mistake was not Ablett. It was not giving Brisbane’s Eric Hipwood a week for a similarly clumsy challenge to Sydney’s Jake Lloyd. Hipwood got fined. He should have been suspended.

The AFL industry demeans and embarrasses itself when it carries on like this.

Remember Jack Viney and Adelaide’s Tom Lynch in 2014?

Viney, who tends to go at contests like a raging bull at a gate, charged front-on into Lynch, hit him in the head with the point of his shoulder and broke the Crows forward’s jaw.

Lynch did not play an AFL game for two months after the Viney hit. Viney played the next week after his defence team had his two-week ban overturned by relabelling the contact from bumping to bracing for contact.

It was bulldust of the highest order but it worked.

No one is suggesting Ablett isn’t a champion, just that he should get a week because that is what you get when you leave the ground and hit an opponent in the head with your forearm.

Little Gaz has been booed lately and there has been a lot of media-driven urging to crowds to stop it. I doubt the booing is going to stop any time soon now. If there is one thing the football public hates it is a blatant double standard.