Isaac Heeney’s Brownlow hopes in ruins, fails to overturn one-game ban

Swans star and Brownlow Medal favourite Isaac Heeney’s fate has been decided at the AFL Appeal Board after his last roll of the dice.

Sydney Swans star Isaac Heeney has failed in his bid to overturn his one-game striking ban, with the AFL Appeal Board upholding the decision.

After 90 minutes of submissions, the Board made the decision in just 35 minutes, meaning the Brownlow Medal favourite will now be ineligible for the AFL’s most prestigious award.

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In a case that has divided the AFL, Heeney made contact with St Kilda defender Jimmy Webster’s face as he attempted to break free on the lead in the third quarter of the Saints’ thrilling two-point victory over the Swans on Sunday.

The MRO graded the incident intentional, high contact and low impact, triggering a one-match ban after the clash that left Webster with a bleeding nose.

On Tuesday, the Swans failed to overturn the decision at the Tribunal, forcing the Swans to take the case to the Appeal Board.

The Swans are arguing the decision was “so unreasonable that no Tribunal acting reasonably could have come to that decision having regard to the evidence before it”, as well as that the classification of the incident was “manifestly excessive”.

But it didn’t go well as Appeal Board Chair Will Houghton slapped down the Swans argument from the outset.

Heeney’s counsel Duncan Miller argued the Tribunal had not gone through the process of establishing the midfielders “state of mind of intent”, with the Tribunal instead assuming the action was intentional rather than looking at the evidence before it.

The AFL reported there is a provision to allow for intent to be questioned rather than automatically be deemed intentional in unusual circumstances.

Miller reiterated an argument from the Tribunal hearing that Heeney had been “swatting between waist and chest height” and that the pair were not “off-the-ball” but were engaged in a contest as the ball was about to be kicked in their direction.

“He was not to know the player who’s two inches taller than him had started stumbling behind him,” he added.

But Houghton responded: “Why are we rehearsing the evidence again? What’s the appealable error you’re pointing to?”

Miller continued to argue that Heeney’s actions showed “complete surprise, which is in line with carelessness”.

But Houghton suggested that if he meant to strike, it was intentional and where he impacted is a different matter.

Isaac Heeney gave Jimmy Webster a bloody nose after this incident.

AFL counsel Andrew Woods argued the Swans were dissatisfied with the existence of the clause rather than making any valid points as to why it should be overturned.

“It’s abundantly clear there was an intention to push or fend,” Woods said. “Once you have that, if a strike is the result, it will be intentional unless there’s an unusual aspect to it.

“He (Webster) clearly was struck in the face, Mr Heeney’s intention doesn’t really matter. It was a straightforward and unsurprising application of the guidelines.”

He also said the Tribunal had decided the situation was not unusual.

Miller responded, saying that if the decision were upheld it would “wreak complete violence on the rest of the rules and guidelines”, as “a lawful action which might accidentally result in a strike would somehow automatically be deemed to be intentional.”

But the Appeal Board quickly returned, with Heeney losing his Appeal.

It means he will miss this weekend’s match against North Melbourne and be ineligible for the Brownlow Medal.

The Appeal Board rejected all three grounds the Swans had argued and dismissed the case.

Speaking on Fox Footy’s First Crack, Saints great Leigh Montagna said he believed it was “a suspendable action”.

“You can’t swing the arm back like that anymore,” Montagna said. “And if you hit the player in the face, that’s on you.”

North Melbourne champion David King said it was “one bad moment on the weekend, and a couple of bad moments during the week”.

“I thought the fact they said he does this action multiple times in any given game is almost a concession that he’s part of the problem,” King continued.

“I thought that was a bad starting point.”

He added that the Swans then “backed over the information they’ve already presented”.

“I think they had a stinker this week the Sydney Swans,” King said.

Heeney after the Swans’ loss. Photo by Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

What the AFL world has said

The league now faces the prospect of Heeney becoming the third player to top the count but not claim the medal due to a suspension during the season.

Corey McKernan (1996) and Chris Grant (1997) topped the count in successive years but were ineligible due to one-game suspensions, while Jobe Watson was stripped of his 2012 medal years later amid the Essendon supplements saga.

The Swans were arguing the action was “careless at worst, insufficient at best” according to Fox Sports, hoping to get it downgraded or thrown out entirely.

Heeney also fronted the Tribunal and was asked how often the swatting motion he produced might happen in a game.

“It happens a lot,” he replied. ‘Especially when a defender wants to hold you in tight and you want that separation.

“Maybe 50 to 100 times in a game.”

Heeney also told the hearing he didn’t expect Webster’s head to be so low when he took the action.

But the AFL had changed the rules during the off-season so that in the instance of any player forcefully pushing or fending an opponent off the ball, the incident would be graded as intentional rather than careless, boosting the penalty from a fine to a suspension.

It left Swans coach John Longmire seeing red, telling SEN: “First and foremost, Isaac is one of the fairest players that I’ve ever seen play the game.

“He’s incredibly hard, incredibly competitive, but incredibly fair and I think his record stands up to that.

“When you sort of look at the circumstances and in this particular instance, I just can’t accept it (that is was intentional).”

He added: “Given all that, what am I supposed to tell him and how am I supposed to coach him? How does a player get off a player? Can you just turn around and fend?”

Heeney’s Brownlow chances are hanging by a thread. Photo by Brett Costello

The decision has divided the AFL with fellow Brownlow contender Patrick Cripps saying: “You’d hate to see someone like Isaac, if he did win (the count), miss out on the chance.

“He’s had a great year, he’s a great player and I feel like he plays the game the right way … that’s all I’d say about that.”

On the other side, Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd told Channel 9’s Footy Classified that he thought was fair enough.

“Even though I think he was looking to get the defender off him, and he didn’t want to hit him in the face, he still flung his hand back and hit Jimmy Webster in the face,” Lloyd said.

Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire argued: “He’s got a week for a blood nose, let’s be honest.”

Former Tigers and Bulldogs star Nathan Brown argued that the incident was “careless, not intentional”.

But he also argued that it exposed the AFL’s disciplinary system as “broken”.

“They’ve got a broken system when the MRO [Michael Christian] gives you a week, then you can go to the tribunal and now you can go to an appeals board,” he told Nine’s Today.

“There’re too many steps. We need to simplify it.

“If you’re rubbed out, you get an appeal and if that’s rubbed out, you’re done. I don’t think there needs to be three [stages] and it goes on all week.”

Originally published as Isaac Heeney’s Brownlow hopes in ruins, fails to overturn one-game ban