Richmond has added another big name to its list of unavailable players with premiership star Liam Baker’s ban upheld at the AFL Tribunal.
The utility went back with the flight to spoil the ball in a marking contest, however, collected Swans key defender Lewis Melican high with his shoulder.
Swans teammates came over immediately to remonstrate with Baker as tempers flared.
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The incident was graded as careless conduct, medium impact and high contact.
Richmond, represented by Sam Tovey, pleaded not guilty arguing the incident was not rough conduct as it was “a legitimate attempt to spoil”.
Should that fail they argued the impact grading should be low rather than medium.
Baker argued he was first trying to mark or spoil the ball, then realised he could only spoil, an intention he maintained throughout the process.
“I never braced, I was always spoiling the ball,” he argued.
Baker said Melican spilling the ball down to his lap caused him to miss spoiling it with his right arm.
“I think my right hand would’ve spoiled the ball before the umpire paid the mark, if he had been clean,” Baker said.
The AFL argued “the central question here is whether this action was unreasonable in the circumstances” and that once the spoil became impossible Baker elected to bump.
“His eyes are initially on the ball but from a number of different angles you see his eyes drop towards Melican,” Andrew Woods said for the AFL.
“A medium grading is appropriate because it was an inherently dangerous action.”
If the Tribunal did not agree Baker elected to bump, the AFL argued it was still an unreasonable way to contest the ball because he was late, suggesting he could have not left the ground or opened his arms.
“If this was an attempt to bump, it was an extraordinarily poor and ineffective one,” Tovey said.
The AFL found while Baker was intending to spoil, he was still “very late” and acted unreasonably because it was unrealistic, and that there was real potential to cause serious injury.
Now the Tigers will need to make at least three forced changes for their clash against St Kilda in Gather Round, with Tom Lynch (hamstring) and Noah Balta (knee) already ruled out.
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