Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley doesn’t like the three-game suspension handed to Gold Coast defender Steven May.
May will miss games against Adelaide, West Coast and the Magpies after the AFL tribunal found him guilty of engaging in rough conduct for his bump on Brisbane skipper Tom Rockliff on Saturday.
“Personally I don’t agree with the decision,” Buckley said on Wednesday.
“I think the decision went against him (because) there was an alternate option for him to contest the footy – and absolutely there was – but if you’re 30m out from goal and you dive on the footy then it’s a free kick against you to your opposition.
“I can understand the thought process of the kid and why he attacked the body first before coming down to the ball.”
But AFL match review panel member Nathan Burke defended May’s sanction, along with the three-game suspension handed to Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge.
Hodge pleaded guilty on Tuesday night to striking North Melbourne skipper Andrew Swallow, an incident the panel panel deemed as “particularly nasty”.
He will miss fixtures against Greater Western Sydney, Melbourne and Sydney.
Former Port Adelaide captain Dom Cassisi was among those confused by what he perceived as inconsistency between the two verdicts.
“If the “bump” in AFL wasn’t dead already, it def is now. May getting 3 weeks is a bit stiff. Should’ve punched/elbowed him like Yarran/Hodge,” Cassisi posted on Twitter.
But Burke said that the tribunal was right in rejecting May’s argument that he had no alternative to the bump that knocked out Rockliff.
“The clauses actually say that if you do have an alternative and you choose to bump the player then you are liable for the consequences of that bump,” he told Fox Sports.
“It was a high-impact collision, and it was a view of the match review panel that he did have an alternative way to contest the football.”
Burke said Hodge’s ban was also “around about the mark”, noting that because his strike had the “potential to cause serious injury” the impact was upgraded from medium to high.
“Hence he got four weeks down to three, because if we had have kept it at medium it would have been three weeks and potentially down to two if he had have plead guilty,” he said.
“We thought just that action and the potential to cause serious injury was certainly there, which is why we upgraded the impact.
“The way that we graded it was intentional and obviously a high hit. Because it’s above the shoulders and to the neck and jaw region, we classed it as high-impact.”
Hodge testified on Tuesday that he was falling off balance when he lashed out at Swallow, but admitted it was no excuse and apologised to the midfielder and Kangaroos coach Brad Scott.
Burke described the veteran’s handling of the situation as “very classy”.
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It is time that the tribunal became more simplistic, closed defence loopholes, and became representative of the game that it is trying to serve.
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