Tribunal shock as ban upheld despite victim’s texts as gun Tiger, Hawks defender’s appeals fail

Clubs have gone zero from three on the first night of AFL Tribunal hearings for the year, failing to overturn a trio of suspensions.

To begin the night North Melbourne’s Jackson Archer saw his rough conduct charge for a collision with the Bulldogs’ Luke Cleary upheld, meaning his three-game suspension remains.

Richmond’s Tom Lynch then had his one-game ban for a bump on Carlton ruckman Tom De Koning upheld, while to finish the night Hawthorn’s Jack Scrimshaw failed to downgrade a three-game ban for striking Essendon’s Jordan Ridley.

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Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson began the night by making the point that in 2025 the AFL is asking for “as much expedition” as possible, rather than getting bogged down in technicalities or a frame-by-frame analysis of the incident.

“It is at the end of the day a sporting tribunal,” he explained.

The first hearing of the night still took two hours and 15 minutes to be completed, though the latter two were indeed quicker.

Scrimshaw hearing

Jack Scrimshaw pled guilty to striking Essendon’s Jordan Ridley but challenged the grading of severe, arguing it should be downgraded to high resulting in a two-game ban not three.

The Hawks defender, represented by Myles Tehan, appeared at the Tribunal with an enormous black eye on his left side after facial surgery.

The AFL, represented by Sam Bird, explained the Bombers medical report found Ridley is expected to miss at least one game through concussion protocols.

The Hawks chose not to call Scrimshaw to give evidence in order to speed up the hearing.

“Scrimshaw regrets the impact on Ridley, and nothing in our submission is intended to diminish the severity of the concussion or the impact of that concussion on Ridley,” they said.

The AFL argued even if the extent of the actual physical impact may be low, strikes are classified at a higher level due to the potential to cause serious injury.

The Hawks argued there was no specific rule which stated a concussion had to mean a severe grading, but the AFL pointed out every case involving a concussion in 2024 was graded as severe.

Grading it high instead “doesn’t mean it’s being minimised, but places it in its proper grading”, according to the Hawks.

But the Tribunal disagreed and found severe to be the correct grading.

Scrimshaw reasons

The fact that a concussion was suffered does not necessarily result in a grading of severe impact.

We note that the Tribunal guidelines state that consideration will be given to the extent of force and in particular any injury sustained by the player offended against.

There’s force to Scrimshaw’s arguments that he slowed immediately before impact, some of the impact was body on body, impact to the head appeared to be from the inside of the upper arm, Ridley played on for a period of time after the impact only to be later diagnosed with concussion and the worst injury that could potentially have happened did in fact happen.

However, we find that the force of impact here was very considerable.

Scrimshaw swung his arm with force. The way in which he manoeuvred his body certainly did not minimise the impact.

Ridley had no reason to expect forceful head high contact, and could do little to avoid it.

Ridley was clearly quite hurt by the impact. He stayed motionless on the ground for a considerable period of time.

He did, in fact, suffer a concussion.

Immediate and medium and longer term consequences of concussion are now well known.

It can be, and often is, a very significant injury with ongoing adverse consequences.

This was not a strike that was unlikely to result in a concussion.

Due to the force of the impact, the fact that Ridley suffered a concussion is unsurprising.

We are satisfied the impact of this strike was severe.

Lynch hearing

The Tribunal agreed Tom Lynch had been pushed, but found he still bumped Tom De Koning, seeing his ban upheld.

Richmond, represented by Sam Tovey, argued if it was a bump it was caused by circumstances outside of Lynch’s control. Their secondary argument was that this was not rough conduct.

Lynch explained his role at the forward 50 stoppage before the incident was to “hit up on the winger” by pressuring him if he gains possession, or shark the tap if it comes to him.

Once Tom De Koning took possession his attention went to the Blues ruck, looking to tackle or smother, before “feeling a significant push” from Jacob Weitering behind him which saw him go from upright to a lower position.

“It pushes me low and then forward,” Lynch said, “as a result my distance between De Koning and I has shortened and right now I’m in a vulnerable position and I react to that push to try and get my body and head especially out of the dangerous position that it’s in.”

“My head is at the same height as his elbows and having a big tall ruckman coming towards me, I felt vulnerable.

“I turned to protect myself and moved side-on to brace for the contact.”

Andrew Woods for the AFL argued Weitering’s push “wasn’t of any significant force”, and that Lynch chose to bump rather than contest the ball.

“Lynch’s movements are incongruous with saying that’s what moved him towards De Koning,” Woods argued, saying there was a “clear movement” towards the Blue.

“He leaves the ground, he turns his body and moves his arm in … he was either stopped or close to stopped (before the contact) and there was no contesting the ball.

“The decision to bump was made and so the deeming provision applies – it wasn’t contesting the ball and it wasn’t caused by circumstances outside of his control.”

The Tigers argued the Weitering push was significant enough to close the gap between Lynch and De Koning, and he then acted in self-defence from a vulnerable position.

“It was a reaction, it wasn’t an intent to bump,” Tovey said.

They argued if the Tribunal finds it was still a bump, it should be thrown out on the grounds the circumstances were out of Lynch’s control (via the push).

Lynch reasons

We find that this was a bump by Lynch. He was pushed to some extent by Wetering, but this did not cause him to bump. Lynch intended to bump De Koning, and he did bump De Koning.

We reject the evidence and the argument that this was not a bump, but rather a bracing for impact.

We reject the evidence and argument that Lynch moved in an upward motion so as to avoid contact to his head.

We find that the contact to De Koning was not caused by circumstances beyond the control of Lynch.

Archer hearing

The Tribunal found Jackson Archer’s behaviour was rough conduct as it was unreasonable in the circumstances, that it was reasonably foreseeable that Luke Cleary was going to ground, that he slowed too little and too late, that the severe potential to cause injury had to be considered, and thus he breached his duty of care.

It comes despite Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge and Cleary himself saying the young Roo didn’t deserve to be suspended.

Andrew Woods represented the AFL and Justin Graham represented the Kangaroos in front of jurors Jordan Bannister and Shane Wakelin, with the club contesting the charge on the grounds it’s not unreasonable conduct along with the grading of carelessness – in effect, just trying to have it thrown out.

The incident, in which Archer’s legs collided with a sliding Cleary, concussed the Bulldogs backman and was graded by Match Review Officer Michael Christian as careless conduct, high contact and severe impact.

Archer gave evidence, explaining he gets coached to play pressing defence and make sure he doesn’t get leapfrogged, which is why he was approaching the contest at pace.

He said his intention was to tackle fairly. He was expecting Luke Cleary to pick up and ball and stay on his feet, as players are taught.

“When he starts to pick up the ball, I’m starting to slow down enough where I can make a fair tackle. It’s not until his knee hits the ground that I realise he’s chosen to go to ground,” he said.

“I’m bracing trying to stop my momentum. My bum’s down, trying to slow down as much as I can, hit the brakes, obviously he’s going to ground. I don’t want to be in that situation and I don’t want him to be in that situation either.

“I expected him to pick up the ball and stay on his feet … if you go to ground you can possibly give away a free kick for below the knees contact.”

The impact was “quite hard” on Archer’s patella and he was “in shock … and in a fair bit of pain”.

Archer said “no Bulldogs players came to me or said anything to me. I ended up coming back on the ground and no one ever said anything to me.”

He added: “I thought I would possibly get a free kick but not immediately at the time”, while relaying a text from Cleary in which the Bulldog said “he didn’t think it was my fault and said I’ve got nothing to stress about.”

He was asked by the AFL: “Do you accept you should’ve slowed a bit earlier than you did?”

Archer said: “No, I don’t think so … the ball is in dispute, it’s an egg-shaped ball, you don’t know which way it’s going to bounce.”

Woods for the AFL said “the AFL’s position is that it’s rough conduct and unreasonable in the circumstances.

”It was unreasonable for Archer to maintain the momentum that he did, not really being in a position to take possession of the ball and in the fact of Cleary going low to try and collect the ball.

“The reason we don’t see these types of incidents very often … is because players simply take more care in a situation like this.

“He does take what appear to be two short steps, attempting to slow, but by then it was too late … he knew he wasn’t going to get to the ball first.”

But Justin Graham for North Melbourne argued: “This was an awful collision that involved two brave footballers. It’s an unfortunate accident. It’s not more than that.”

The Kangaroos used player tracking data to show Archer dropped his velocity from 29.52 to 22.32 – Graham was unclear what this number actually represented – as he slowed down before the collision.

Full Archer reasons

We find that this was rough conduct against Cleary, which, in the circumstances, was unreasonable.

We carefully considered the evidence.

We consider that the relevant circumstances are:

A) This was not a contested ball situation… Cleary was always closer to the loose ball and was always going to reach the loose ball before Archer. Archer gave evidence that he intended to tackle Cleary if Cleary took possession of the ball.

B) It was reasonably foreseeable that Cleary may, at least to some extent, go to ground and not cleanly gather the ball and then straighten up in a manner that would have permitted Archer to tackle him without the unreasonable risk of injury.

We acknowledge that the rules encourage players to keep their feet to the extent possible in contest situations, and we acknowledge that players are coached to try to keep their feet, but this does not always happen.

Players should be taken to be aware that it does not always happen.

Players frequently go to ground, either because they intend to, because they stumble, or because they’re pushed.

We’re unable to determine here whether Cleary made an entirely voluntary election to put his knee on the ground, or whether he did so at least in part because of his momentum, movement of the ball and the pressure of the moment.

In our view the important matter is that it was reasonably foreseeable that he would do so. Cleary did not dive and did not collapse to the ground. He went to one knee and then both knees when bending over at speed in a contest situation.

Ultimately, his body moved in a way that went beyond or lower than him being on both knees, but this was a product of his speed, his momentum, the way he approached the ball.

Again, we say this was reasonably foreseeable.

While there was contact below Archer’s knees, this was not a situation where the ball was in contest and where Archer could reasonably have expected that Cleary would necessarily gather the ball cleanly and straighten up so that no such low contact would be made.

The severity of the injury that could potentially occur is also a relevant circumstance. A high speed collision from front-on of a player whose head is over the ball has the potential not only to cause injury but to cause severe injury.

This informs the nature and extent of the duty of care of a player in Archer’s position.

In those circumstances, Archer approached the contest at excessive speed, giving himself no reasonable opportunity to avoid harmful contact with Cleary in the circumstances that foreseeably arose.

Graphs indicate that he did decrease his speed by about 25% prior to impact. But given that he was running about as fast as he could, given that he was approaching Cleary from front on, and that Cleary had his head over the ball, and given that he could not reasonably predict what position clear he would be in at the moment of impact, he slowed too little and too late.

His duty of care required him to slow more appreciably and earlier in order to give himself the opportunity to avoid or minimise head high contact.

We find that Archer’s conduct was unreasonable in the circumstances.