Three players will appeal suspensions at the AFL Tribunal with Carlton’s Adam Cerra joining the list of those fighting for their footy freedom. Live blog below!
The Blues confirmed on Tuesday morning they would challenge Cerra’s one-match ban for striking Geelong’s Jack Bowes from Sunday’s win at the MCG.
While there were concerns Cerra had suffered a groin injury in Sunday’s win – and thus he would miss Round 8 through injury anyway – the Blues have since said it was just cramp.
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The incident was graded as intentional with low impact and high contact, and with the Blues likely confident of success given their excellent track record at the Tribunal.
In the last 30 months, lawyer Peter O’Farrell led the Blues’ defence and successfully fought bans for Nic Newman (striking), Harry McKay (striking), Adam Cerra (rough conduct), Jack Martin (striking, downgraded rather than overturned), Jordan Boyd (rough conduct) and most notably Patrick Cripps (rough conduct) in late 2022, allowing the Carlton captain to win the Brownlow Medal.
However clubs this year are 0-5 at the Tribunal overall. The last team to win an appeal was Gold Coast with Bodhi Uwland in Round 20 last year, two weeks after Charlie Cameron and Toby Bedford overturned three-game rough conduct charges at the Appeals Board on technicalities.
Carlton rocked by double injury blow | 00:50
The biggest hearing of the night centres on North Melbourne young gun Paul Curtis, who was given a three-week ban for a dangerous tackle on Port Adelaide’s Josh Sinn.
Cited as rough conduct, the impact was graded as severe due to Sinn suffering a concussion when he fell face-first into the Adelaide Oval turf, and along with careless conduct and high contact gradings this resulted in a three-week sanction.
The Kangaroos are likely to try and argue Curtis either did nothing wrong or had no alternative as he tackled Sinn from behind.
Finally Adelaide will fight Mitch Hinge’s one-match suspension for striking Fremantle’s Andrew Brayshaw.
Hinge collected Brayshaw in the face during a scuffle near a stoppage during Friday night’s loss in Perth, seeing the same gradings as the Cerra incident – intentional with low impact and high contact.
It’s unclear whether Hinge, Cerra and Curtis’ appeals will all be held tonight or spread out over two days.
Follow tonight’s AFL Tribunal hearings with David Zita in our live blog below! If you can’t see the blog, tap here.
Separately at the VFL Tribunal, St Kilda will appeal top-10 pick Alix Tauru’s four-match ban for rough conduct while playing for Sandringham, which came just days before he was tipped to make his AFL debut.
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