Adelaide might try to halve Taylor Walker’s two-game AFL suspension by arguing against the severity of his rough conduct charge.
The Crows suffered a blow on Monday when they lost the league’s leading goalkicker for their big matches against Carlton next Sunday at Etihad Stadium and Collingwood the following Saturday night at home.
Walker is enjoying a breakout season and leads the Coleman Medal tally with 24 goals, while the Crows are 6-1 after winning the pre-season competition.
But the match review panel penalised him for his sling tackle on Geelong defender Harry Taylor in the first quarter of Saturday’s 50-point win over the Cats.
Taylor was dazed after his head hit the ground and he had to leave the field, but was back after quarter time.
The panel ruled the incident was negligent, medium impact and high contact.
Walker cannot reduce the penalty by taking an early plea, because he had carry over points from his front-on contact charge after the round-five match against Port Adelaide.
He accepted a reprimand for the contact with Power opponent Jacob Surjan.
Adelaide would risk a three-game ban if it tried to argue against the charge, but Adelaide’s official Twitter feed pointed out that problem would not apply if they only pleaded against the grading of the offence.
“Walker can plead guilty & challenge one of the classifications without risking 3. Only risks 3 if he pleads not guilty & is unsuccessful,” the club said in the post.
They cannot realistically argue against the high contact nor the negligent aspect, but they could try to have the impact downgraded from medium to low.
If successful with that strategy, Walker would only receive a one-match ban.
The Crows have until Tuesday morning to decide.
It is understood the Geelong medical report is favourable to Walker, saying that Taylor did not suffer concussion from the incident.
Meanwhile, match review panel chairman Mark Fraser admitted two tribunal verdicts in favour of players had affected their rulings on potential sliding offences.
North Melbourne’s Jack Ziebell and Melbourne’s Jordie McKenzie were cleared on Monday over sliding incidents, deemed to be of insufficient force to constitute an offence.
In the case of McKenzie sliding into Mitchell, though, it was noted a free kick should have been paid.
Those decisions came after Fremantle’s Greg Broughton and North Melbourne forward Lindsay Thomas successfully fought sliding-related charges at the tribunal.
“Obviously the tribunal decisions with the two incidents will change our thinking a little bit,” Fraser told the AFL website.
“The tribunal didn’t believe that was rough conduct.
“But every case is different – we’ve had previous cases this year with people sliding in who have been cited.
“They’ve gone to the tribunal and been found guilty – we just take every case on its merits.”