“After VAR Review…”
CANBERRA – In a world-first, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s infamous 2022 demolition of an eight-year-old during a campaign football match will now be penalised retroactively.
While the clip briefly took over social media, experts believe it vanished too soon to have any lasting impact on Australian football and requires a second wind. “It was the first time in years the whole country’s football opinions were united,” said one Fox Sports producer. “We had genuine drama, physicality, and a clean connection on contact. It was clumsy and reckless, and it wasn’t punished enough at the time.”
The moment, now buried under algorithmic rubble, saw Morrison mistime a challenge with surgical precision, sending the youngster tumbling in what many describe as “Australia’s most significant tackle since the Muscat–Zahra intervention.”
Morrison’s camp maintains the incident was “an unfortunate misunderstanding of space and timing,” while his supporters insist it showed “a rare commitment to the contest – exactly what Canberra’s been missing.”
Today, Australian football continues to struggle with national attention and a shortage of viral moments. “If that tackle had stayed in the public consciousness for just a week longer,” said one marketing consultant, “we might’ve had kids pretending to be Luca in the backyard instead of Ronaldo.”
But as the years pass, one of the nation’s greatest comedic fuck-ups remains a relic of unrealised potential – a viral moment that burned too fast, too bright, and ultimately, too soon.
It remains unclear how the tackle has affected the young man’s career trajectory, though sources close to the family say he now instinctively checks his shoulder whenever someone in a suit approaches.
