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Adelaide forward Shane McAdam is off to the AFL tribunal after his massive bump on GWS’ Jacob Wehr attracted a rough conduct charge.
McAdam is looking at a minimum three-game ban, his bump ruled as careless conduct, severe impact and high contact.
The ‘severe impact’ grading separates him from Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett, whose own brutal bump on Western Bulldog Bailey Smith only attracted a ‘high impact’ tag which allowed him to escape with a two-game ban.
Wehr passed a concussion test and returned to the field for the rest of their win against the Crows, although that did not prevent the severity of McAdam’s charge.
Collingwood veteran Scott Pendlebury earlier urged the AFL to stamp out unnecessary head-high bumps by punishing players based on the action rather than the outcome, after Pickett, McAdam and Sydney’s Lance Franklin all got sanctions in round one.
It comes at a time with extra scrutiny, with concussion a hot topic in professional sport with the AFL facing a class action from former players.
Assessing the Pickett incident in particular, where the Melbourne forward leapt into the air and into the Bulldog’s head, Pendlebury queried whether the ban was only two weeks because Smith had avoided injury.
Wehr and Collins were both assessed for concussions and cleared while Smith got straight to his feet.
“Ours is all outcome-based,” Pendlebury told Triple M radio.
“I think for years there’s been the question around ‘are we going to punish the outcome or the action and where do we live?’ And we still live in the outcome, punishing the outcome. Which rightly or wrongly, I don’t agree with.
“I think it should be the action that gets punished. They’re not football actions.
“(When you launch at someone like Pickett did), your intention’s to hurt. It’s not a football action.
“I’m talking for everyone in the game here, not about those instances but I think it’s something that we need to get rid of out of our game.
“But this chat’s been going on for five or six years … Those non-football actions I think we really need to treat seriously and get out of our game.”
Pendlebury said he would also be in favour of “sin-binning” players like in the NRL.
Franklin’s ban for the Collins bump rules him out of the Swans’ clash with former club Hawthorn.
“Ten years ago, Buddy wouldn’t even get looked at for that but now that’s a week because we’re so keen to protect the head,” Pendlebury said.
“I think we’ve got to take that approach to everything.
“… the MRO, I don’t know if it’s a better system or a better way of looking at things, (need to) make sure we stamp it out and I don’t know if we’re getting it right at the moment.”
© AAP
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