Match Review Panel - Solomon Straight to Tribunal, Buchanan Four, Kerr Three, Pratt Two, Crowley One
July 14, 2008 by Tristan Heffernan
Round 15 was one where the Match Review Panel definitely earned their money - well as much as you can by plugging in a few gradings into a formula to spit out a list of demerit points.
Freo’s Dean Solomon was the biggest case of the round (story here), and as expected the MRP wiped their hands of it, sending it straight to the tribunal. Solomon is looking at a very lengthy sentence indeed. Note that as strange as it may seem, Solomon is likely to get at least the same sentence as Barry Hall did for his whack on Staker, thanks to a 30% loading carried over from past indiscretions. So before you get stuck into the tribunal comparing it to bad Bazza, just keep that in mind. We won’t get into the fact Hall got off lightly either…
Anyway let’s look at the other verdicts handed down by the MRP:
- Amon Buchanan was given 5 weeks, reduced to 4 with an early guilty plea, for his shoulder charge on Luke Hodge on Sunday.
- Daniel Kerr was given 4, reduced to 3 weeks with the plea, for his cheap shot on Richmond’s Matty White in the Eagles’ embarrassing loss at home to the Tigers.
- Kangaroo Daniel Pratt is facing 3 weeks on the sidelines, or 2 with an early plea, for making unreasonable contact to the face on the huge head that is Brett Ebert of the Power.
- Freo tagger Ryan Crowley has earnt himself a week off for his cheap strike on Gary Ablett Jr.
- Sylvia and Douglas both avoided suspensions despite being found guilty, while Mooney and Waite will also be right to front up again this week after being found to have no case to answer.
No word yet from the clubs on whether they are likely to contest any of the penalties.
Surely NM must appeal the Pratt one. The commentators went over the Pratt-Ebert incident about 5 times with slow motion replay, there’s simply nothing there except Pratt’s hand was on Ebert’s forehead during a tackle purely by happenstance. As they noted, there’s no indication Pratt’s fingers went into Ebert’s eyes, they didn’t so much as wiggle.
If Judd got off last year with a much dodgier-looking hand movement, it would be an absolute joke for Pratt to go on this.
Pretty shocked that Mooney got nothing (or Hunt) but assuming that the MRP was being nice to Geelong because Freo was clearly starting all the trouble.
Solo will have the rest of the year off.
Raf - Nothing new for Judd to get a bit of preferential treatment.
Kerr has accepted the 3 wks.