St Kilda defender Nathan Brown’s season over after three-game ban at AFL Tribunal

NATHAN Brown will not play again this season after he was handed a three-week ban by the tribunal for his late bump on Essendon’s Adam Saad.

NATHAN Brown will not play again this season after he was handed a three-week ban by the tribunal for his late bump on Essendon’s Adam Saad.

Brown, 29, was sent straight to the tribunal for the act and had attempted to argue that the hit was of the lesser charge of careless conduct but failed, meaning his 2018 campaign is now over. Brown, who has played 167 games – starting his career at Collingwood and winning the 2010 premiership before moving to St Kilda – was adamant in his evidence that he did not intentionally set out to engage in rough conduct. BAROMETER: ALL THE LATEST INJURY NEWS AT YOUR CLUB RUN HOME: YOUR CLUB’S BEST AND WORST-CASE SCENARIO SUPERLADDER: WHERE YOUR CLUB SITS AFTER ROUND 21 He said when he saw Saad running at speed and a number of Saints dropping off and not keeping up with him, he attempted to employ what he said was a tactic taught to defenders to stop the quick Bomber. “As we’re taught quite regularly as a defender I wanted to check my opponent,” Brown said. “I noticed my teammates weren’t gaining ground on him so my immediate thought is ‘I’ve got to slow Adam up and maybe force a high kick’. “My intent was to stop his run so he doesn’t follow up and break inside 50 or kick a goal or dish a handball. We’re taught to check our opponent. “I acknowledge that I was careless in my hit on him but my intent was just to stop his run inside 50.” Brown maintained that it was never his intention to get Saad late or injure him. “I would never go out to do something like that,” he said, but was unsure as to whether he could have avoided the contact given the short timeframe in which it unfolded.,” he said. The AFL had asked for the three-week sanction and said it was worth no more. “It wasn’t a deliberate snipe,” AFL counsel Jeff Gleeson said. “Despite the fact it was late and intentionally unreasonable conduct, he stays low, he braces himself and he does what he can to avoid it being a full-blown shoulder to head contact. “Yes, there was contact to the head and Brown accepts that, but it could have been worse. He doesn’t launch himself and leave the ground ... with the intent to make head-high contact. “(This incident was) an aberration rather than the way that he usually conducts himself.” The Saints had asked for a two-week ban, which Gleeson said would be “manifestly inadequate”. St Kilda argued that the ball was close enough to the incident to be considered in play and therefore the bump should be graded as careless. Gleeson rejected that, and argued the ball was “considerably more” than five metres away on impact. Brown said after the 90-minute hearing that he “wholeheartedly” accepted the tribunal’s finding that rules him ineligible to play until Round 2 of next season. “Again, I apologise to Adam and his family,” he said. “Hopefully he can take the field for Essendon this week.” Essendon provided a medical report that affirmed the contact to Saad had been high despite conjecture that Brown had only hit his opponent to the shoulder. It said that Saad “sustained a knock to the head and was stretchered off the ground”. It also said he “complained of a sore jaw”, which no doubt contributed to the grading of high impact against Brown. Saad is to be monitored this week and will undergo concussion testing, will miss one to two days of training and “depending on symptoms will have modified training during the week”. “He is not expected to miss matches at this point but (that is) dependent on symptoms and testing during the week,” the report read. Watch every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. SIGN UP NOW >

Originally published as St Kilda defender Nathan Brown’s season over after three-game ban at AFL Tribunal