Melbourne’s Tom Bugg sent straight to AFL tribunal over striking charge against Swan Callum Mills
AS expected, Melbourne’s Tom Bugg has a date with the AFL tribunal on Tuesday night after his hit on Sydney’s Callum Mills, while two other players also face suspension.
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TOM Bugg will face the AFL Tribunal on Tuesday night.
And two other players have been offered respective two-match bans in a busy day for the match review panel.
As expected, the Demon’s strike that took Swan Callum Mills out of Friday night’s game has been referred directly to the league’s tribunal by the match review panel.
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Video evidence and a medical report from Sydney were considered in the panel’s deliberations, with the act deemed to be intentional, high impact and high contact and no early plea is available.
It left Mills’ teammates ropeable after the match, with Sydney midfielder Luke Parker labelling the punch as “a dog act”.
He could be facing as many as six weeks on the sidelines.
Football great Wayne Carey called the action “a brain fade”.
“It’s just been teetering on the edge for him, he’s very niggly in a lot of games and he’s just gone way, way too far — the big occasion might have gone straight to his big boofhead,” Carey said on Triple M.
“Clearly this year Melbourne has played right on the edge. What Bugg did has jumped clean over the line.
“It’s a brain fade, he snapped and he’ll cop his right whack.”
Bugg apologised after the game and conceded it “looked really bad”.
“I saw the footage, it does look really bad. I’m a bit embarrassed,” he said on Channel 7.
“It looks really bad, my genuine intent wasn’t to hurt Callum. It’s disappointing he couldn’t take part in the rest of the game.
“Going forward, I hope he is OK. I went to try to speak to him after the game but could understand he didn’t probably want to speak to me too much.
“I hope for him and his family he gets better and he can play next week.
“Going forward, it wasn’t my genuine intent. It’s not the way we want to be seen as a club.
“We have seen things in the past happen like this. It’s not what we want to be viewed as. We want Melbourne to be a strong football side and not incidents like that to define us.”
Saint Jimmy Webster has also been offered a two-match ban — down from three — for making “unnecessary contact” with the eye region of Docker Nick Suban.
Webster has no applicable bad record which would allow him to accept a discounted ban should he plead guilty.
From the same game, Fremantle’s Cam McCarthy has also been offered a two-game suspension for rough conduct on St Kilda defender Sam Gilbert.
There was also nine financial sanctions delivered, including a total of $3000 for Saints defender Jake Carlisle for instigating and then participating in a melee.
Lance Franklin was cleared for making contact with Melbourne’s Mitch Hannan.
“Hannan fumbled the ball after being given a handpass and bent down to collect the ball,” the panel said.
“Franklin was running towards the Melbourne player with his arms outstretched in a tackling motion when high contact was made. A free kick was paid at the time for the high contact. It was the view of the panel there was insufficient impact in the high contact to constitute a report.”
Franklin’s teammate Zak Jones was also let off for making contact with the Demon.
Bomber Zach Merrett was also cleared for contact with Dayne Zorko.
The following fines were issued:
Lachie Hunter (WB) $1000 for engaging in rough conduct against Eagle Jeremy McGovern
Mitch McGovern (Adel)$1000 for striking Blue Jacob Weitering
Jack Ziebell (NM) $1000 for tripping Sun Jack Martin
Jack Steven (StK) $1500 for striking Docker Hayden Ballantyne
Jake Carlisle (StK) $1500 for instigating a melee and $1500 for engaging in a melee
Dylan Roberton (StK) $1000 for engaging in a melee
Cam McCarthy (Fre) $1500 for a second offence of engaging in a melee
Nick Duban (Fre) $1500 for a second offence of engaging in a melee
Brady Grey (Fre) $1000 for engaging in a melee
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