Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett wants a permanent committee to examine all AFL grounds as part of his campaign against the controversial Etihad Stadium playing surface.
Kennett has consistently criticised the surface, where Western Bulldog Shaun Higgins and Brisbane’s Ashley McGrath were hurt at the weekend.
The AFL says it will comply with a Bulldogs request for the ground to be examined, but league boss Andrew Demetriou denied it was dangerous.
The issue has polarised opinions, with Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade and Essendon’s Matthew Knights unwilling to add their voices to the queue of critics.
Richmond’s Ben Cousins, though, described the ground as “a concern” foollowing Higgins’ ankle injury.
Kennett said the surface was “a concern to many clubs and certainly many players”.
“What I’m going to propose today is to establish a standing committee, not only to look at the surface of Etihad, but to have a look at the surface of every ground that we play on,” Kennett told the Fairfax Radio Network.
“I think we do have to address it – it is serious and the last thing any president wants, any AFL official wants, is for a player to be unnecessarily injured.”
Demetriou described Etihad as “absolutely safe”, although he said the AFL would take the Bulldogs’ views into account as they continued to look into surface issues.
“We take our responsibility to occupational health and safety extremely seriously,” he said.
“We go through all the proper checks and balances, an exhaustive series of checks and balances and will continue to do so and be very vigilant when it comes to any issues of safety.”
Cousins described the issue as “an ongoing saga.”
“I saw the game Sunday and I reckon it was concerning to see Shaun Higgins go down the way he did with the moving surface,” Cousin said on Melbourne’s radio Nova.
“I don’t think it’s knitted to the turf below.
“… after seeing that incident in particular, I reckon it’s a concern.
“His looked pretty clear-cut to me that the ground definitely had something to do with it.”
Eade seemed unperturbed by the fuss, describing Higgins’ injury as “just one of those things” and Kennett’s call for a new committee as “a bee in Jeff’s bonnet”.
“We like playing at Etihad, it’s our home ground and we think it’s okay.”
Knights said he had had no negative feedback from his players about the Etihad surface this year.
“When there’s concerns raised what usually happens is things get repaired or fixed pretty quickly,” he said.
“So I’m expecting the ground to be in tip-top shape from Friday night’s game when Carlton play the Kangaroos to Saturday night’s game (against Geelong).”
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