Will Day is looking to overturn his dangerous tackle ban at the AFL Tribunal but minutes before the hearings began, Geelong withdrew their appeal for Gary Rohan.
Day was offered a two-match ban by the Match Review Officer, while Rohan was offered one week, following the 82-point Easter Monday win by the Cats.
While neither Brad Close (tackled by Day) or Changkuoth Jiath (tackled by Rohan) are known to have been injured from the incidents, Day’s tackle was graded as high impact, while Rohan’s was graded as medium – follow the Tribunal from 3:30pm AEST in the blog below!
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Just before Day’s hearing was scheduled to begin the Cats announced they would no longer be challenging the Rohan suspension.
“The club has decided to accept the sanction following further legal consultation throughout Wednesday and again on Thursday morning,” Cats GM of football Simon Lloyd said.
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The Hawks asked to have Day’s tackle downgraded to medium impact (the same as Rohan’s), ensuring he will be banned for at least one week.
Hawthorn great Dermott Brereton expressed his surprise at the verdicts during Tuesday night’s AFL 360.
“He takes him down, there’s no sling there. It does look violent, the end bit of it, but he just takes him straight to ground,” Brereton said of Day’s tackle on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
“I don’t think either are intended to injure the opposition. The second one (Day), and people’ll say ‘ooh Hawthorn and Geelong (the rivalry)’, I couldn’t give a fat rat’s (about the teams involved).
“I just thought with the Rohan one, he (Jiath) got slung 270 degrees. The other one, he (Close) just went face-first. Pulled down hard. There was no sling in it.
“Is it dangerous? Probably is, so it’s a hard determination but I can’t understand how one’s worth two (weeks) – which I thought was the lesser (and one’s worth one).”
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