By Peter Ryan, Michael Gleeson, Jon Pierik and Andrew Wu
In today’s AFL Briefing:
- AFL football boss says a free kick to Essendon should have been paid after a cancelled umpiring decision late in their thrilling win over the Roos
- Essendon’s Harrison Jones is optimistic his gruesome lower leg injury is not as bad as first feared
- Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says Alastair Clarkson’s decision to attend the Hawks’ centenary match against Richmond is a sign the two parties are mending a strained relationship.
The AFL was satisfied with the controlling umpire’s decision to call a ball up after he was alerted by a fellow umpire he had made an incorrect decision to award a free kick in front of goal to North Melbourne late in Thursday night’s tight match at Marvel Stadium.
Football operations boss Laura Kane admitted with the benefit of the replay the correct decision would have been to award the free kick, which was initially paid for time-wasting, to Essendon but the league is happy with the process the umpires followed and the decision to ball it up.
Essendon’s Archie Roberts (left) and Nic Martin react to Thursday night’s cancelled free kick.Credit: Getty Images
“The thing that was really important for us is that the wrong free kick wasn’t paid so that support umpire has really helped by coming in over the headsets that they’re all connected to,” Kane told this masthead.
She emphasised that the controlling umpire was told of his mistake by another umpire on the field, and clarified that umpires never receive direction in-play from people off the field other than the emergency umpire.
“Only the four field umpires, the goal umpires, and the emergency goal umpire on the bench who might be calling things like a blood rule or a HIA process. [There is] absolutely no communication from anybody else whilst play is live,” Kane said.
The incident had little bearing on the result – a three-point win to the Bombers – although it was confusing as umpires rarely change their decision.
Kane said a commonsense outcome was reached.
“The controlling field umpire has blown the whistle for a ball up, He thinks that he’s seen an Essendon player kick the ball away and has blown whistle again to pay a time delay free kick [then] the support umpire through the headsets, and I’ve listened to the audio, has said, ‘No, it wasn’t Essendon. It was North Melbourne’,” Kane said.
“Where a free kick is rightly being cancelled the umpires are instructed to ball it up. We can review it now and see that North Melbourne in fact kicked the ball away, and it should have been a free kick to Essendon.
“In the moment, the instruction to the umpires, unless the support umpire is very sure, which in that moment he wasn’t, the ball up is the outcome that we’re after. We’re just pleased that the free kick to North Melbourne was cancelled.”
‘No major breaks’: Bomber gets positive news on gruesome injury
Versatile Essendon tall Harrison Jones will not need surgery on his gruesome lower leg injury, but the Bombers have paid a hefty price for their thrilling win over North Melbourne.
Jones, who suffered a dislocated left ankle on Thursday night, underwent scans on Friday that confirmed a minor fracture in the base of his foot.
The club has not placed a timeline for Jones’ return, though he is likely to be out for weeks, rather than months.
The 24-year-old injured his left ankle right on three-quarter-time during Essendon’s clash with North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium.
“I’m OK,” Jones told Channel Nine and Channel Seven reporters on Friday.
“[I] got CTs [and] X-rays last night. [There are] no major breaks, so it’s a lot better than it could have been.”
The 59-gamer said he was in shock immediately after the incident, which left his ankle pointing at right angles.
“I sort of looked down and saw my foot was the other way, and I thought, ‘Oh, here we go’,” Jones said. “It all happened pretty quick.”
Harrison Jones is treated on the ground on Thursday night.Credit: AFL Photos
The injuries to Jones, Jordan Ridley and Jade Gresham, coupled by narrow win for the Bombers after kicking just three goals after quarter-time, made for a dramatic night.
Ridley suffered a high-level hamstring strain that will sideline the important defender for several weeks, the Bombers said, while forward Gresham will also miss next week’s game against Sydney due to a low-grade adductor strain.
Injuries are biting hard for the Dons, who have lost ruckmen Sam Draper and Nick Bryan for the season and are yet to see star midfielder Darcy Parish at all this season. Midfielder Jye Caldwell, though, is in line to return next week.
In a game that should not have been in doubt after their first quarter but was absolutely in doubt right up until the last minute, the win came at a painful cost.
“It was carnage there in the second half in particular,” Essendon coach Brad Scott said on Thursday night.
“Ridley has a hamstring, [a] fresh injury, unrelated to anything he’s had prior … In his 100th game, we talked about his roller-coaster career. He’s been a Crichton medallist. Clearly, we rate him extremely highly, and he’s had to overcome some adversity, and he just looked like he was starting to get a free run and gets another injury. And Gresham couldn’t come back on late with a bit of adductor tightness.”
Essendon led by 25 points at half-time, but the Roos adjusted, blocked space and dragged the game into a scrap. They then played with dare off half-back to trail by a point at three-quarter time.
North lost Jackson Archer to a bad hamstring in the first half and were coming off a five-day break, but surged in the third quarter and kept winning territory in the last. Archer is now set to miss eight weeks with a high-grade hamstring strain.
The Bombers, with strong presence from Nate Caddy and Peter Wright presenting for the ball, and Sam Durham and Mason Redman trying to support of superb skipper Zach Merrett, used the ball more thoughtfully coming from defence than the Roos.
In the final minutes, first gamer Finnbar Maley, the son of former NBL player Paul, had the chance to put the Roos in front when he took a strong contested mark and had a set shot from 50 metres out. He had already kicked one goal early on – a lovely curled goal from long range – but this time he sweated over his kick so long the clock ran out. He was hurried into his kick which then fell short.
North Melbourne players get around Finnbar Maley after kicking a goal.Credit: Getty Images
”There were a lot of mistakes made in the game. It was not Finbar’s fault,” coach Alastair Clarkson said. “He will be disappointed. It’s just him his humility would suggest he feels like he let the team down but he has not let us down at all.
“The football world want to judge us on wins and losses but six times this year we have been in the game at three-quarter time, this time last year it was zero.”
The Bombers need to mine their list for replacements.
“The thing that I was really pleased with tonight was the resilience and the character of the group,” Scott said.
“We obviously had some adversity in the last quarter, and coaches are always loath to individualise, but we had some individuals that just stood up in big moments, players that we just couldn’t take off the ground.”
Clarkson, Hawks ‘tracking the right way’ in relationship rebuild
Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says Alastair Clarkson’s decision to attend the Hawks’ centenary match against Richmond is a sign the two parties are mending a strained relationship.
Clarkson has had little to do with the club he won four premierships at as a senior coach since parting ways in 2021.
However, he confirmed this week he will be at the MCG on Sunday, the Hawks having invited every player to have played at least one game for the club, along with past coaches and staff.
Grand memories: Sam Mitchell and Alastair Clarkson were key cogs during a brilliant premiership era.Credit: Getty and The Age
Mitchell said on Friday it was a positive sign Clarkson, now the North Melbourne coach, had opted to join the celebrations.
“He is coming to the reunion this week, so that says to me things are tracking the right way,” Mitchell said.
Clarkson’s relationship with the club was particularly strained during the racism saga which emerged in 2022. He, former club football manager and now Brisbane premiership coach Chris Fagan and former staffer Jason Burt all strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
An AFL investigation found no adverse findings against the trio.
Clarkson did attend the 2023 10-year reunion of the Hawks’ 2013 flag. But he and Mitchell have also had a fractured relationship, the former premiership captain having returned to Waverley as an assistant coach before replacing Clarkson in the top role.
“There are so many great people from all of the eras. With Clarko being a four-time premiership coach, to have him coming along [on Sunday], and spend some time with the guys he coached, and do that sort of thing, there are so many great people from every era coming along,” Mitchell said.
“The players that you know, whether it’s Lethal [Leigh Matthews], and Hodgey [Luke Hodge], and Tucky [Michael Tuck], and [Gary] Ayres, [Peter] Knights, the list goes on and on … or whether it’s the coaches or administrators, whether it’s the Ian Dickers of the world or Jeff Kennett’s of the world, I think it’s fantastic we are able to bring all of our people together.”
The Hawks do not know if four-time premiership star Cyril Rioli, who has also fallen out with the club, will attend. Rioli and his family are Darwin-based.
Defenders Karl Amon and Jack Scrimshaw will both miss Sunday’s game because of concussion. The Hawks have also lost Cam Mackenzie to a broken hand. They’ve recalled Luke Breust, Finn Maginness and Changkuoth Jiath.
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