Lower Plenty player knocked out in Northern Football League match, calls for tougher action

WATCH: MORE video has emerged of another violent act in a match in the Northern Football League, as calls grow to clean up the sport at a local level.

• Fahour: ‘I’m deeply ashamed’
• AFL boss backs official in probe
• ‘His son won’t even recognise him’

A SUBURBAN footballer knocked out by an off-the-ball hit has called for the Northern Football League to come down harder on acts of thuggery.

It comes a day after footage emerged of AFL diversity manager Ali Fahour punching a player during a Northern Football League game on the weekend.

Lower Plenty player Tim Duckworth said he was left unconscious in the game on June 24 after an elbow to the head from a North Heidelberg player, who was not reported or suspended.

Duckworth missed Saturday’s game due to concussion, is also expected to miss this week’s contest and will need a doctor’s certificate before he can return to the field.

He laid stationery in the middle of the ground for more than five minutes, before being taken from the ground.

Lower Plenty's Tim Duckworth is hit during the Northern Football League match.

Duckworth said he could not remember anything from the first half of the Round 9 game.

“It was only eight minutes in — it was definitely unprovoked — I just went for the shepherd and he came in over the top with an elbow and collected me straight in the jaw,” Duckworth said.

“I think their (league’s) reasoning was there was insufficient evidence to see whether it was a shoulder or an elbow.

“You can blatantly see his elbow is in the air.

“The footage speaks for itself.”

Lower Plenty was rocked last year by the death of one-punch victim Patrick Cronin, who was killed by a coward’s punch while enjoying a night out at The Windy Mile pub in Diamond Creek.

Trainers attend to Tim Duckworth on the ground.

The NFL held a ‘Stop the Coward Punch Round’ two weeks ago, with the initiative aimed at raising awareness of “the dangers and devastation of social and street violence”.

Duckworth said he had suffered headaches as a result of the hit.

“It is disappointing because now I miss maybe three weeks and he is right to play the next week,” he said.

“It is not just my case, they (the league) just don’t come down hard enough on things like this.”

North Heidelberg coach Steve Saddington said the club would not tolerate head high hits.

Saddington is the cousin of Whittlesea player Dale Saddington, who was the victim of Fahour’s punch on the weekend.

North Heidelberg will hold a meeting tonight with its players reiterating the club would not accept hits behind the play.

“We’re clearly against anything like that,” Saddington said.

“If anyone thinks it is something we’re trying to avoid, we are not.”

Fahour will face the tribunal tomorrow night.

The NFL has been contacted for comment.