Melbourne star forward Kysaiah Pickett is staring down a third suspension in just over a season, with the club desperately trying to free him for Thursday night’s blockbuster clash with Brisbane at the AFL Tribunal. Live updates below!
Pickett was charged with rough conduct yet again, this time for a late bump on Adelaide’s Jake Soligo.
The Demons forward left the ground and collected Soligo in the head late with his upper arm, resulting in a grading of careless conduct, medium impact and high contact.
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Melbourne argued it was a brace, not a bump, pleading guilty to rough conduct but arguing it should be categorised as low impact not medium.
Pickett delivered a written statement to the Tribunal, arguing “my intention was to catch the ball. I collided with Soligo and then followed the ball to make the next contest until the umpire blew the whistle.
“I had no intention of bumping Soligo, I was trying to intercept the ball in the air.”
The Demons attempted to bring an expert’s evidence in, but Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson questioned how his evidence would help given the Demons were only challenging the impact grading.
Representing the Demons, Adrian Anderson argued the ‘Maynard rule’ which sees high bumps and smothers given a higher impact grading did not apply because that did not specifically include braces for impact.
Anderson attempted to claim the Demons did not concede the act was careless even though they were not contesting the grading of careless.
Fox Footy analyst David King said following the incident: “It’s just a dumb thing to do. He’s reaching for contact … and then the onus is on you to miss the head. He’s in trouble.”
Pickett’s aggression has helped him become one of the game’s most dangerous small forwards, but also cost him with multiple suspensions over the past 18 months.
He missed two weeks for a rough conduct charge against Bailey Smith in Round 1 last year, and then missed Opening Round this year due to a one-week rough conduct suspension emerging from a semi-final incident with Patrick Cripps. Pickett was also fined for striking in that game.
Given this year’s track record of failed bump appeals – including Richmond’s Liam Baker and St Kilda’s Max King, plus the four-week ban for Essendon’s Peter Wright – it seems clear the Demons are heading down a losing path.
“It doesn’t look like there’s much chance of this getting off – it’ll be really difficult, in my view,” Fox Footy’s David Zita said on Monday’s edition of AFL Tonight.
“They can try and argue it’s a footy act or it shouldn’t be medium impact, I think the issue here is the potential to cause injury (with hits to the head) will come into consideration for the Tribunal.
“Also they can say he was trying to smother, but that’ll come under the new rule as a result of the Brayden Maynard-Angus Brayshaw incident last year, which means any reasonably foreseeable contact that’s at least low impact will be reportable unless the player has taken reasonable steps to avoid or minimise it.
“He’s turned, he’s tucked the arm in, he’s rotated. The initial contact is to the head. I don’t see how Melbourne gets this off.”
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