Poor Risk Assessment?

No doubt when you saw this you were shocked.

I certainly was.

I simply couldn't believe someone could so blatantly cheat.

The condemnation has been universal.

But then I got to thinking.

There are little cheats going on all the time.

Some of it fairly low level.

The odd push here. A pull of the shirt there.

Some more blatant.

Handballs. Trips. Two footed tackles.

Except in the odd cases where these is personal malice, most players would probably say they do it for their teams, that the other team are going to do it whether you do it or not, and that everyone just knows it is part of the game.

What it always involves is a calculated risk.

Partly taking account of the consequences (e.g. if you are already on a yellow card you might be more careful).

But mostly, I suspect, making an assessment of the likelihood of getting caught.

Despite being widespread, when put like that it sounds very unsporting.

Which begs the question.

Was Lafferty's behaviour an act devoid of moral reasoning?

Or the product of a poor risk assessment.