AFL 2025: Former Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy defends incident that hospitalised Luke Cleary

A former club captain has weighed in on the incident that resulted in a young Western Bulldog being hospitalised on Saturday night.

Former Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy said there was “definitely no malice” from North Melbourne defender Jackson Archer in the incident that hospitalised Luke Cleary.

Cleary, playing in his eighth game for the Bulldogs, was stretchered off and spent the night in hospital after Archer and he collided during the third quarter of Saturday night’s match at Marvel Stadium.

Archer was handed a three-match suspension, but North Melbourne will challenge it at this week’s tribunal.

Murphy was at Whitten Oval on Monday as the Dogs rebrand back to Footscray for their 100th anniversary match against Collingwood on Friday.

He said he thought the incident was just “one of those unfortunate accidents”.

“Because there wasn’t a lot of replays on the night it was sort of hard to judge, but my initial thought was it was just one of those unfortunate accidents,” he said.

Luke Cleary was stretchered off the ground on Saturday night after colliding with Jackson Archer. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

“We get the luxury of looking at it in slow motion, and it’s whether the tribunal thinks he had another option, and they might deem that he did.

“There’s definitely no malice and it’s one of those ones where you don’t want to see players miss footy for those sort of things, but it may end up that way.”

Stand-in skipper Tom Liberatore said Cleary was back at the club on Monday and recovering well.

“He (Cleary) was in hospital overnight Saturday and I checked in with his family and checked in with him,” he said.

“He’s in (at the club) today and he’s actually recovered quite well.”