Leigh Matthews lashes AFL ‘bozos’ after key Cat Stewart ruled out of grand final

A Brownlow medallist and an Australian Football Hall of Fame legend have joined a push for a pre-grand final bye following a devastating concussion that has ruled Geelong defender Tom Stewart out of next week’s end-of-season decider.

Stewart was taken from the ground in the first quarter of the Cats’ preliminary final win at the MCG on Friday night after being driven head first into the turf in a tackle by Hawthorn’s Mabior Chol.

Tom Stewart is attended to by Geelong medical staff on Friday night.Credit: AFL Photos

Stewart will not emerge from concussion protocols until the Wednesday after the grand final.

The fear of a star player missing the biggest day of the year had already been forecast last week by new AFL footy boss Greg Swann.

Swann raised the prospect of shifting the bye to the back end of the finals series to ensure every player had the chance to be fit for a grand final.

“It’s more to do with somebody getting concussed [in the preliminary final] and not being able to play [in the grand final],” he told the AFL Record.

Tom Stewart was ruled to have suffered concussion after this incident.Credit: Getty Images / Channel Seven

“That’s why we think that bye would be better off before the grand final.”

When Swann was Brisbane Lions CEO, he and new AFL chief operating officer Tom Harley – in Harley’s previous capacity as Swans CEO – put their name to a submission calling on the AFL to introduce a pre-grand final bye.

Hawthorn great Leigh Matthews on Saturday said it was only matter of time before the “slow-moving bureaucracy” at the AFL would have to rethink the timing of the finals bye.

“This was the elephant in the room. It was always going to happen,” Matthews said.

“So who are these bozos behind the scenes of the AFL, in the executive and the commission, that have allowed this to exist since the concussion protocol was put in place?

“That might have been three or four years ago. That is the time, that has been really slow moving, that the bye wasn’t brought in [before the grand final] because of injury.”

Stewart took to social media on Saturday to address the incident.

“Obviously shattered with what happened last night, but so grateful and overwhelmed with all of the love and support I have received by so many,” Stewart posted on Instagram.

“Couldn’t be more proud of this group and to be a part of this amazing club is something that I truly cherish. How bout them Cats! LFG.”

Chol was whacked with a three-match ban over the incident, the AFL’s match review officer citing him for misconduct. The first quarter incident was ruled careless conduct, with severe impact and high contact.

Geelong great Jimmy Bartel jumped on the issue at half-time of Friday night’s preliminary final, even before the Cats had beaten Hawthorn by 30 points.

“The 12 days [of mandated rest for a concussed player] is a league rule. It is just to make sure the [concussed] players miss a game, and so they have the opportunity to play in two weeks,” Bartel told 3AW.

“But there’s always been this running argument: would someone challenge it? Because there are varying points of view, ‘Is 12 days the right number?’ It is just an arbitrary number. Should it be 16 days? Should it be 21?

“It’s been a frustration of mine that we don’t have the bye pre-grand final for situations like this because we have just been lucky, and now it’s a star player going down.”

Geelong coach Chris Scott said he had long had an issue with the league’s reasoning for introducing a bye at the end of the home-and-away season, in the week before the finals begin.

“I understand it’s not optimal for the AFL to have masses of players rested for inconsequential games in the last home-and-away round of the year, but I just didn’t think that was a good enough reason,” Scott said.

“I feel that the clubs should have autonomy over this stuff, and it was in a period of time, too, where the AFL just couldn’t find another space for a bye during the year, and then they found one overnight.”

Richmond great Matthew Richardson was vocal during Channel Seven’s match coverage on Friday night that it was only a matter of time before the bye in the closing stages of the season was moved until after the preliminary finals.

Geelong forward Shaun Mannagh said the Cats players would throw their support behind Stewart during the week.

“I think that will definitely get touched on earlier this week,” Mannagh told 3AW on Saturday.

“I mentioned before how devastating it is for him and for us as a team. He’s obviously a very integral part of our team, so we’re gonna have to cover that for sure.

“But he’s going to want us to go out and play like we do every other week, regardless if he’s out there or not.

“So there’s extra motivation for us as a team to win for him, and all the other boys on our list that aren’t playing as well.”

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