Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield’s ban for a dangerous tackle overturned at AFL tribunal

Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield is free to face Essendon on Saturday after having his one-game ban for a dangerous tackle on Sam Walsh overturned at the tribunal.

Geelong superstar Patrick Dangerfield will face Essendon on Saturday night after talking his way out of a rough conduct charge at the AFL tribunal.

Dangerfield argued down an initial one-week ban through a lengthy evidence session in which he convinced the tribunal his method of pulling Carlton star Sam Walsh backwards meant he wasn’t endangering the Blue.

Walsh hit his head on the turf after what the AFL’s match review panel deemed was a dangerous tackle.

Given both of Walsh’s arms were pinned, Dangerfield would normally have been suspended.

AFL tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson said “it would be rare or even exceptional” for a player to escape a rough conduct charge when pinning both arms in a tackle like Dangerfield’s.

But Gleeson said “this is such a case”.

“Given the considerable care that Dangerfield went to in a short space of time in a fast moving play to do what he could to minimise injury to his fellow player we find this was not rough conduct,” Gleeson said.

Patrick Dangerfield tackles Carlton’s Sam Walsh last Friday. Picture: Michael Klein

Geelong solely argued that the tackle should not have been deemed as rough conduct, with Cats lawyer Ben Ihle telling the hearing “the only real question for the tribunal is whether it was unreasonable in the circumstances for Patrick to do what he did”.

Walsh was not injured by the tackle, which occurred in the opening 30 seconds of Friday night’s game and he gathered 33 disposals in a comfortable Carlton win.

The tribunal deliberated for about 45 minutes.

Midway through, tribunal member Shane Wakelin accidentally left the deliberation window and returned to the public chat before finding a way back into the panel’s discussion.

In evidence, Dangerfield argued insistently that he was attempting to pull Walsh backwards and avoid falling in his back and driving him into the turf in the tackle.

The Brownlow medallist was typically forthright and, at times, antagonistic towards AFL lawyer Andrew Woods, at one point telling the lawyer he would “argue all day” over the finer points of the tackle.

Dangerfield was adamant his action of getting his legs underneath Walsh to pull him back was a way of avoiding injuring his opponent.

“You wouldn’t execute a tackle this way if you were out to cause maximum damage. You just wouldn’t,” he said.

Dangerfield’s ban has been overturned. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

The AFL did not argue there was any sling motion when Walsh’s head was brought to the turf but that he should have released Walsh’s warm to allow him to brace.

“Dangerfield didn’t do enough to discharge the duty that he owed Walsh as he brought him to the ground,” he said.

But Dangerfield said Walsh fell onto the football and that propelled him forward to ultimately hit his head and having his arms pinned was not to blame.

When Woods suggested Dangerfield should have released an arm, the Geelong captain bluntly told him: “you can suggest it, I don’t agree with you”.

The Carlton loss was Dangerfield’s first game since round 7, having been sidelined by a hamstring injury.

The tackle itself split the footy world before Tuesday’s tribunal hearing, with Collingwood great Nathan Buckley arguing Dangerfield could not have done any more to protect Walsh.

Former St Kilda star Leigh Montagna said Dangerfield needed to release and arm and given he didn’t, it was a dangerous tackle.

Originally published as Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield’s ban for a dangerous tackle overturned at AFL tribunal