North Melbourne will have until tomorrow to decide whether to contest the ban handed to Tristan Xerri for the strike that knocked out Melbourne’s Tom Sparrow.
The Match Review Office assessed the incident as high contact, severe impact and careless conduct, resulting in a three-game suspension.
Xerri’s attempted tackle on Sparrow caught his opponent high in the immediate follow-up play after a boundary throw-in during Melbourne’s 36-point win on Sunday.
Sparrow was knocked out and eventually taken off on a stretcher, and has been put in concussion protocols.
Kangaroos coach Clarkson defended his player, referencing a separate incident, in which North’s Luke Davies-Uniacke was concussed by Western Bulldogs midfielder Ed Richards one week earlier, when asked post-match about Xerri’s contact.
“We’re at (the AFL’s) discretion. They’ll look at every concussion,” Clarkson said post-game.
“But they looked at LDU’s concussion last week and said no case to answer, and that’s a raised forearm to the scone.
“This is just a tackle … he’s got very, very little time to prepare for the tackle.
“That will be up to the AFL to work out, but unfortunately in the game there’s going to be collisions, especially around stoppage and especially around the big rucks.”
Demons teammate Max Gawn ran in immediately after the incident, which sparked an all-in scuffle, but he told FoxFooty after the game that he had to respond.
“I haven’t seen any vision of it since. Xerri, I know as a ruck, he’s following up as hard as he can, and he’s the best in the comp at doing it, so there’s definitely an element of that,” he said.
“I thought it was high.
“Once I saw my teammate down I had to respond.”
In a busy week for the tribunal, Brisbane has confirmed Zac Bailey will challenge the one-match suspension handed to him by the MRO for rough conduct.
While Carlton’s Adam Cerra is also facing a possible suspension in a test case for the league, referred to the tribunal over his latest case of careless umpire contact.
– with AAP
