THERE has scarcely been a week in memory when the AFL's capacity to deliver just outcomes has been so comprehensively tested.

The competition's tribunal, match review panel and planned code of conduct have all been subjected to scrutiny. And the game's senior administration has been challenged by the historically persuasive case of Tasmania as a bidder for one of two new spots in an extended competition. Such a searching examination of the game's various mechanisms warrants an end-of-week assessment.

Clearly, the Barry Hall case has been the main event, a description that could hardly be more appropriate. While there have been many punches thrown through the years, never has one so removed from the run of play been captured with such clarity by a television camera. In this day of image-consciousness in sport, it's hard to imagine a worse look than Brent Staker's pulverised face and rolling eyes as Hall's fist crashed home.

For football, this was a benchmark case: a big player, who knows how to execute a punch, caught red-handed knocking an unsuspecting opponent rotten.

The tribunal issued a seven-week suspension. The outcome was interpreted by most who reported the case as corresponding to either a nine or 10-week penalty without the plea of guilty entered by Hall. Yet, as Nathan Buckley wrote in yesterday's Age, how else was Hall going to plead? Buckley also said the message of this outcome is that the heaviest penalty a player can expect to receive from an on-field misdemeanour is about seven weeks.

Speaking of messages, what of the one Hall was delivered when he was permitted to play in the 2005 grand final after being captured by television cameras the previous week felling St Kilda's Matt Maguire with a punch to the midriff? To beat the rap on such a significant occasion, in spite of overwhelming evidence, could not but tell a young man that he could get away with it.

Hall is now one of the most suspended players in history. This was the seventh occasion he had been found guilty at the tribunal and such has been the seriousness of some of his offences that he has accumulated a total of 23 weeks' suspension. Only five players, excluding those who have served just one particularly long stretch, have done more time than the big Swan. Despite being a serial and serious offender, Hall's record didn't act against him either on Tuesday night or in 2005.

If the tribunal produced an outcome this week that was debatable, the match review panel came up with a howler. Widespread dismay has been expressed at the panel's inaction over Trent West's destruction of Xavier Clarke last Saturday. The panel offered four explanations for its decision:

■The bulk of the contact was to Clarke's body. (So where was the rest of the contact made?)

■West did not use his elbow as part of the contact. (So what?)

■ West did not leave the ground during his action. (Again, so what?)

■ West did not run a great distance to make contact? (See above responses.)

West cleaned up Clarke, with unnecessary force, off the ball and the Saint — 25 kilograms lighter than his assailant — was carried off on a stretcher. If the AFL football operations department and its match review panel regard that as acceptable, the game has just changed for the worse.

Also in the news during the week was the code of conduct that is still being written by the AFL. It appears to have found a way of distinguishing between the contentious cases of Carlton president Richard Pratt and delisted former Eagle Ben Cousins.

Pratt's company, Visy, was fined $36 million in the Federal Court for price fixing but the Carlton boss hasn't had a glove laid on him by football. Cousins has been found guilty of no offence by the law and yet has been run out of the game for bringing it into disrepute. Whether Staker or George Orwell would watch such fancy footwork as the AFL's with greater admiration is arguable.

Last problem for the week was the announcement by Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon that his state wants an AFL team. "It's in our blood," Lennon said. He knows the AFL is not interested in the colour of blood; it's only interested in the colour of money.

As with his tribunal, match review panel and code of conduct, league chief executive Andrew Demetriou is unrepentant. He said the AFL will receive Tasmania's submission and then include teams from the Gold Coast and western Sydney anyway. The state whose football is bleeding to death can keep hemorrhaging.

That's our report on the week's examination. The examiner is a renowned hard marker and he's not entirely happy. He has awarded the tribunal a bare pass, the code of conduct writer a distinction for creativity, the match review panel a two-week suspension and he suggests that the AFL chief executive try much harder on Tassie.