Melbourne is fronting the AFL Appeals Board tonight with the eyes of the footy world watching – and in many cases, hoping they win.
Their last-ditch effort to free young forward Jacob van Rooyen of a two-match suspension for striking has drawn plenty of commentary, with the majority of observers stunned by the Tribunal’s call to uphold the Match Review’s grading.
While Tribunal chairman Jeff Gleeson accepted van Rooyen was attempting to spoil Gold Coast’s Charlie Ballard when he crashed into the Suns defender last Saturday, he and the jury upheld the ban.
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“A reasonable player would have foreseen that in spoiling the way he did, it would have almost inevitably resulted in a forceful blow to Ballard’s head,” Gleeson said.
Gleeson had previously instructed the jury that “if the contact is either inevitable or likely – in a sense that it’s reasonably foreseeable that it would result in a reportable offence – it is not incidental.
“If we find the contact was reasonably foreseeable and results in a reportable offence of striking, it is not permitted contact.”
Lewis weighs in on Van Rooyen’s ban | 02:05
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin said the club had to challenge van Rooyen’s ban for the good of the game.
“Clearly, it’s disappointing and frustrating. There’s no doubt about that,” Goodwin said.
“And I think when you see the outrage in our supporter base, you see the outrage of the footy community, clearly you look at that and it’s either unjust or the fabric of the game is getting challenged.
“And, you know, for us, it’s important that we probably go down that path of looking at why that’s the case and take (it) a little bit further and we’ll look at all avenues about how we go about doing that and get all the information that we can.
“But clearly there’s a level of frustration, level of disappointment for a whole range of different reasons.
“Clearly, the laws state that you can contest the ball, and Jacob’s only thing that he was looking at was contesting the ball. The fabric of the game has been challenged, clearly.”
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