AFL tackle crackdown: Fresh stats reveal suspensions, fines as Patrick Dangerfield backs hardline stance

There’s been no official rule change, but the numbers behind the AFL’s tackle crackdown are clear. Find out how and why things are changing.

Hugh McCluggage is helped off after being tackled by James Sicily.

Dangerous tackle suspensions have quadrupled this season as the AFL urges players to modify their tackle technique to help limit head knocks.

In a move strongly backed by AFL PA president Patrick Dangerfield, the league has handed out 23 suspensions and four fines to players across the first 14 rounds this season.

That is a sharp increase on last season when the AFL dished out eight suspensions and 15 fines for the year.

The Herald Sun has counted back over four years of dangerous tackle sanctions to 2020 when the league made a crucial change to the tribunal guidelines on the back of a Shaun Burgoyne tackle on Patrick Dangerfield in Round 2.

The toughened stance has seen the number of suspensions for dangerous tackles increase from five bans (and 20 fines) in 2020, three (and 24 fines) in 2021, eight (and 15 fines) in 2022 to 23 suspension (and four fines) so far this year.

Will Day was suspended earlier this year for a tackle on Brad Close.

While there has been no AFL rule change for this season, it is clear the impact threshold on dangerous tackles has been lowered as part of a strong stance from footy bosses to help combat the threat of concussion in the game.

Concussion experts and former players have urged the game’s bosses to do more to help limit the number of head knocks in footy and the devastating impacts on players.

On Friday, former St Kilda star Justin Koschitzke detailed the harrowing impacts of concussion on his mental health in the wake of a horrific headhigh bump he received in 2006.

Koschitzke said at a fundraising lunch for the Danny Frawley centre at St Kilda he played with a fear factor in the second half of his career.

“Fear crept in when I went out on a footy ground and it was a big battle,” Koschitzke said.

“I played another six or seven years after that and it was very tiring to get out there.”

The concussion crisis is why the league has come down strongly on dangerous tackles this season with a significant spike in the number of players suspended, rather than fined.

Match review officer Michael Christian made a statement in the opening two rounds of the AFL season on headhigh contact, suspending Adelaide’s Shane McAdam for three matches for a headhigh bump in Round 1 and Richmond’s Nathan Broad for four matches for a dangerous tackle in Round 2.

Callan Ward was suspended for a tackle on Lachie Neale.

Port Adelaide’s Ryan Burton also copped a two-match suspension for pounding Jamie Elliott into the turf at the MCG in Round 2.

The decisions were ticked-off by the game’s incoming chief executive Andrew Dillon as part of the standard match review process, signalling a clear statement to the clubs and players about the risks of dangerous tackles.

There has also been an increased focus on monitoring for dangerous tackles in games, in particular where players have been put in a vulnerable position and excessive force is used.

A vulnerable position is, in part, determined by whether a player’s arm has been pinned in the tackle.

James Sicily was suspended after a tackle which concussed Hugh McCluggage.

In 2020, former AFL footy boss Steve Hocking changed the guidelines so that only one arm had to be pinned in a tackle to trigger the ‘potential to cause serious injury’ impact upgrade, increasing the severity of the penalty.

The tribunal and the tribunal appeals board backed the rule change this week when it upheld a three-match ban for James Sicily’s dangerous tackle on Lion Hugh McCluggage.

Sicily had hold of McCluggage’s left arm when he was rolled into the MCG turf, concussing the Brisbane midfielder.

Dangerfield said players had to heed the league’s warnings.

“As an industry we have to remain firm around, principally, what are we trying to change here,” Dangerfield said on SEN.

“I understand the emotions that will change with the season getting deeper and what the ramifications are for the said player, said team, said Brownlow (Medal) availability.

“It is the right path. I’m dead certain that there are clearly teething problems we are going through and will continue to go through.

“I don’t think overreacting to concussion will ever be a bad thing in our game.”

Originally published as AFL tackle crackdown: Fresh stats reveal suspensions, fines as Patrick Dangerfield backs hardline stance