Shayne Hope
Updated ,first published
In today’s AFL Briefing, your daily wrap of footy news:
- Three players have been offered one-week bans by the MRO after Saturday’s play.
- North Melbourne inflicted another heavy defeat on the Tigers.
Two Hawks, one Sun offered one-match bans
Greg Dundas
Two of Hawthorn’s prime-movers were offered suspensions and Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters copped another whack in the hip-pocket in the AFL match review officer findings from Saturday’s three-point thriller at Marvel Stadium.
Skipper James Sicily and craft goalsneak Dylan Moore were the two Hawks given one-game bans, both for striking Port’s Logan Evans in the third quarter.
If they choose not to challenge those bans at a tribunal hearing, they will miss the Hawks round-seven clash with Gold Coast.
Butters – Port’s acting captain – was offered a $1000 fine for striking Hawthorn’s Sam Butler in the same quarter of the same game. He’s already booked in for a separate appeal hearing on Monday as he fights against a $1500 fine imposed on him by the AFL a week earlier.
The league’s tribunal last week found Butters guilty of directing abusive and insulting language at umpire Nick Foot in Port’s Gather Round loss to St Kilda.
Butters’ teammate Joshua Lai was also fined $1000 for making careless contact with an umpire in Saturday’s game, while there two penalties handed down from the game between Gold Coast and Essendon.
Sicily was caught on camera tangling with Evans off the ball, allegedly striking him in the midriff late in the third quarter. The undisciplined act resulted in Evans getting a shot at goal after the siren. The MRO deemed the contact was intentional and of medium impact.
Moore also gave Evans a free kick earlier in the quarter, with an act on his team’s 50m line that was rated the same by the MRO.
The Suns face the prospect of not having defender John Noble for the clash against the Hawks after the MRO found he’d committed rough conduct against Bomber Thomas Edwards in the fourth quarter. Noble was found to have hit Edwards high, carelessly at medium contact.
He raised his arms and collected the Bomber as they competed for a ball near the boundary line on the Suns half-forward line, with Edwards rubbing his head behind his ear afterwards. Former captain Youk Miller was fined $1000 for making careless contact with an umpire in the same game.
North annihilate Tigers, showcase versatility
Cam Zurhaar has shone in a new role across halfback as North Melbourne franked their best start to an AFL season in a decade with a 75-point thumping of injury-hit bottom side Richmond.
With Paul Curtis kicking a career-high six goals, the Kangaroos logged their greatest winning margin under Alastair Clarkson in the 20.10 (130) to 7.13 (55) victory at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.
It lifts them to a 4-2 record and their strongest return through six games since a 9-0 opening to 2016, when they last played finals.
The Tigers lost acting captain Tim Taranto (concussion), Sam Banks (dislocated shoulder) and Maurice Rioli Jr (hamstring) to injuries, and are 0-6 in their worst start since 2010.
It could have been a different story, with the woefully inaccurate Tigers trailing by 39 points at the main break despite having more scoring shots to that point.
“There’s not a hell of a lot of mercy in this game – you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do to win games of footy,” Clarkson said.
“We were a little bit fortunate we got the Tigers on the hop in terms of their injuries, but we still needed to go out and perform the way that we wanted to.”
Young star Harry Sheezel tallied 39 disposals, seven clearances and one goal in an influential display for North, with Luke Davies-Uniacke (26 possesions), Colby McKercher (26) and George Wardlaw (25) also important.
Usually a threat in attack, the explosive Zurhaar (23 disposals) was redeployed behind the ball and had a game-high 644 metres gained.
North had no shortage of options in the front half as Curtis, Cooper Trembath (three), Nick Larkey (two) and Zane Duursma (two) kicked multiple majors.
Young gun Sam Lalor had 22 disposals and one goal for Richmond, while Seth Campbell and Jack Ross (26 touches) added two majors each.
After Banks was hurt in a crunching Davies-Uniacke tackle in the opening minutes, Curtis kicked three first-quarter goals to give North the early ascendancy.
The Tigers, who also lost Rioli before half-time, created plenty of scoring opportunities but repeatedly let themselves down with poor finishing.
Richmond paid a price as the Kangaroos piled on eight consecutive goals and blew the lead out to 47 points before the main break.
Taranto was out of action early in the third term and North kicked away as Trembath, who was blanketed by Noah Balta in the first half, worked his way into the contest.
Tom Powell provided a highlight with a soccer-style goal off the deck through heavy traffic in the final term and the Kangaroos won every quarter, with Curtis kicking the last three majors of the match.
Young gun Sam Lalor stepped up for Richmond in the absence of Taranto and rested star Jacob Hopper, tallying 22 disposals and one goal.
Seth Campbell and Jack Ross (26 touches) added two majors each, but the undermanned Tigers were unable to fight back after blowing too many scoring opportunities early in the contest.
“When it starts ticking over you could sense the pressure was building on whoever was taking the next shot,” Richmond coach Adem Yze said.
“At halftime it’s 2.12 to 10.3 and they were making everything count, and we weren’t, and it can start to affect the morale of the group.
“When you paint the picture at halftime and (you are winning) all the main KPIs that you want to be in front of, the hardest thing is telling the story when the scoreboard’s telling you something different – especially when it’s a young group.”
– AAP
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