WHEN the AFL Commission summoned, as it would errant schoolboys, the West Coast hierarchy to a censure meeting, the tremors of the eruption were immediately felt by the Perth club's neighbour.

Fremantle's decision to suspend Jeff Farmer for six matches for an assault was done as much with an eye on the commission as the player.

Farmer has been before the courts twice for assaults, once for beating his partner, the other for punching a bouncer. A third incident in December last year, also for a drunken fight at a nightclub, did not proceed to prosecution. These matters all occurred after he had completed anger management training in 2002.

As the magistrate who last week fined Farmer $3000 said, his record now demands that another court appearance will mean his new teammates will be prisoners, not Dockers.

In that context, a six-match suspension and fine on top of the six-match suspension meted out by the AFL Tribunal for eye gouging — his 10th suspension — were far from excessive. But it was probably not a suspension the club would have entertained without the commission's intercession.

Farmer's problems are greater than the issue of how he is disciplined by his club. He is an allegory of modern Australian society.

At the risk of amateur psychology, the violence in Farmer's character often appears to stem from the fact his mother and uncle were both victims of the stolen generation.

It helps inform who he is, for even close friends acknowledge he is quick to read prejudice and even quicker to react to perceived injustice. He keenly feels the grief of his family.

" 'Wiz' is somebody that is very bitter because of the experience of his mother and uncle. His mother was part of the stolen generation, so that plays on him and he struggles coming to terms with that," said one club official and friend.

"He is angry, he is upset. A cousin of his got shot and the bloke who shot him was white and got 18 months — that upset him deeply."

Farmer was just a boy from an Aboriginal farming community of barely 300 people several hours south of Perth when he had fame and fortune thrust upon him.

In that town of Tambellup, he was not known as Jeff, or Wiz, or "Wizard" — the moniker he has worn since recruiter Bernie Dunn watched him play as a teen and wrote "plays like a wizard". In Tambellup, he is still known as "Beppy".

There, Beppy's precocious talent meant he was playing in games beyond his years, pitted against men. It was a tough town and little concession was made to size or tender years. His father was a tough man able to hold his own and Farmer would learn to survive on the field and off.

Soon he was playing for South Fremantle Colts while recruiters and coaches stood on the boundary. One of those was Neil Balme, then the coach of Melbourne.

"I said to the bloke I was with, 'Who is he?', and he said, 'Farmer'. I said, 'He has ruined the game'. Whenever he went near it, he got it," Balme said once of that occasion.

Soon, young Beppy had given way to Wiz. Farmer was a prodigious talent soon realised in red and blue, but he also had a restlessness away from his people. In 1997, Farmer went home in the break between seasons. When he did not return for a training camp in January, Melbourne officials became anxious.

Angry and nervous, Balme and Garry Lyon boarded a plane to cross the Nullarbor to recover their player. Upon arriving, the coach and captain quickly realised how badly they had misjudged their friend.

Farmer was grieving the death of two uncles, while at the same time, the mother of his young daughter had decided to remain in Western Australia. As a senior member of the family, certain customs had to be honoured and responsibilities fell to him.

Balme said later that, in hindsight, it exposed how naive football clubs were in dealing with the cultural differences of indigenous players. It was not that he wanted to leave Melbourne, he simply could not leave Tambellup. Not yet anyway.

Farmer later said that without the club's intervention, he might have been lost to the game. "I've thought about that and I've probably thought maybe if they didn't come over, I think that probably would have been the end of my football in the AFL," he said.

"Just with family, I was happy. I was enjoying myself again. Sometimes with football, when you're not enjoying yourself, you're not playing really good footy.

"I was pretty down when family passed away … I got the thoughts that maybe I should stay there. I just thought it was about time I put my family first."

He returned to Melbourne for several more years. Teammates and fans alike embraced him. They loved the Wiz. He remains close to his last two captains, Lyon and David Neitz, even sharing a house with the latter. He is still loved without reserve at Melbourne.

Eventually, the desire to be close to his family proved too great and Beppy returned west. When he did so, he could have arrived at his destination of choice, for almost no cost to his new club, but Farmer insisted Melbourne not be hurt in the exchange and so eschewed the pre-season draft.

A friend of Farmer's told The Sunday Age: "One of the issues when he came back to Perth in the first place was that he was coming back into that setting where his family was around him.

"Jeff is a role model within the family and that wears very hard on him at times. Sometimes with Jeff, you feel his behaviour is about getting away from issues. He has to release the pent-up anger in him.

"There is no question he feels that he is most in control when he is on the football field. Now that might be hard for people to understand but the fact is he is away from a lot of these prejudices he feels and the footy field gives him an opportunity to get out there and do what he does best."

Last year, Farmer had his best season for Fremantle, and arguably a better one than when he won All-Australian selection with Melbourne in 2000.

He is the pre-eminent small forward in the game and arguably behind only Kevin Bartlett, Leigh Matthews and Peter Daicos for all-time great small forwards. He is the first Aboriginal player to kick 400 goals, and should boot 500, assuming he returns to the game. Oddly, he was not in the indigenous team of the century.

He is not just an accumulator of goals, he is a conjurer. He is a player for whom his aggression off-field informs his ability on it. He plays best straddling the line of permissible behaviour, just barely containing his temper.

Consider his most formidable performance. In round 14, 2000, he was beaten comprehensively by Magpie Tarkyn Lockyer and had to be replaced early in the game by Ben Beams.

The young Demon impressed with his best form before breaking his arm and, out of necessity, Farmer returned to the field. A little less than an hour later, he had kicked nine goals. Nine! In a half!

Last year was the same, reported early in the season and finishing the year having had his best season for Fremantle. It is what has made his forced absence this year so much more bitter to swallow at the Dockers.